Israel
BANNED
Listen, I know I am not the only one who sees this, others surely do, and may well see it better than I do.
Let's file it under the all purpose scripture "everything that can be shaken will be shaken till only what is unshakable remains"
All purpose in that anything that is less than perfect can be inserted there. "Playing with the scripture(s)" is asking for trouble, surely, but there remains that they are given us for instruction. "Everything that can be deceived will be deceived till only what cannot be deceived remains"..."Everything that can suffer corruption will suffer corruption till only the incorruptible remains"
And this especially applicable in this seeming present situation:
Everything that can look to trust in everything else will trust in everything else, till only what is not "everything else" remains. Till the One...who is One...is all, and only.
I say "seeming present" situation because for now, and in this now...there is something struggling furiously to make itself "the present thing"...that thing that would consume all of the present with its presence. Demanding attention. In a manner of speaking it is saying "I am the most present thing". Pay attention. Worship...me. I am...here. I am to be what you have in your eye. In your mind. In your full attention.
We might ask ourselves, if we care to, how does such a thing lay claim to that place, especially among the people of God...if so be that the people of God can be moved by it? How can something demand our attention...that is not...God? How can a "thing"...hold such sway? Surely it cannot...apart from God's will and purpose.
That is understood, is it not? Unless one cares to see God as one with many plates in the air, struggling to keep them all in balance, running to and fro to keep all from crashing down in disarray, frantic. The god who knows "uh oh!". In simpler words...a god...who is not God. The god...ignorant of a sparrow's fall. Unknowing of the hairs on your head. The god who is the "reacting god"...not the only acting God. The God of all purpose.
And God...who alone has every right (and good purpose) to our rendering attentions to Him as the God, is the God above all other gods. And so we might again, if so presently provoked, ask..."who, or what is always...most present?" If I am shaky in the present (and who could hide this from God?), how so? By what mechanism has this been allowed?
(And some of you, already way ahead, rightly ask this question "Why is this man writing about things...is he not himself displaying himself as in reaction to "things"...therefore...what God does he claim to have, if he himself is no less moved by "things"?" Yes!...precisely...that's the sort of question to ask!)
Yes!
What if God has purposed to make Himself known through...things? Not that the thing is anything of itself...but that in the "thing" might be revealed either "a" or the purpose of God? Are you not a thing through which God has chosen to make His name known? Am I? Not that we are anything but just that...a "thing"...but that the Spirit might show His exceeding power...that even through the weakest of things...He (the Spirit)...is able to reveal the mind of, the purpose of...our God? Do not the "heavens declare?" Creation itself...declare? Not that the creation is God...but they testify of the Creator...by the Spirit's power to reveal.
So, "this seeming present" thing. Can God be seen...even through that? Do you not find it interesting...if not funny, how this thing would seek to appear? Or better...how that it is indeed funny how it seems to be appearing? A friend posted this yesterday. Can you "see" God in it? Can you "see" through to a perfection, or at least a precision of some sort?
It is frustrating...
????
Here are the official Coronavirus guidelines:
1. Basically, you can't leave the house for any reason, but if you have to, then you can.
2. Masks are useless, but maybe you have to wear one, it can save you, it is useless, but maybe it is mandatory as well.
3. Stores are closed, except those that are open.
4. You should not go to hospitals unless you have to go there. Same applies to doctors, you should only go there in case of emergency, provided you are not too sick.
5. This virus is deadly but still not too scary, except that sometimes it actually leads to a global disaster.
6. Gloves won't help, but they can still help.
7. Everyone needs to stay HOME, but it's important to GO OUT.
8. There is no shortage of groceries in the supermarket, but there are many things missing when you go there in the evening, but not in the morning. Sometimes.
9. The virus has no effect on children except those it affects.
10. Animals are not affected, but there is still a cat that tested positive in Belgium in February when no one had been tested, plus a few tigers here and there…
11. You will have many symptoms when you are sick, but you can also get sick without symptoms, have symptoms without being sick, or be contagious without having symptoms. Oh, my..
12. In order not to get sick, you have to eat well and exercise, but eat whatever you have on hand and it's better not to go out, well, but no…
13. It's better to get some fresh air, but you get looked at very wrong when you get some fresh air, and most importantly, you don't go to parks or walk. But don’t sit down, except that you can do that now if you are old, but not for too long or if you are pregnant (but not too old).
14. You can't go to retirement homes, but you have to take care of the elderly and bring food and medication.
15. If you are sick, you can't go out, but you can go to the pharmacy.
16. You can get restaurant food delivered to the house, which may have been prepared by people who didn't wear masks or gloves. But you have to have your groceries decontaminated outside for 3 hours. Pizza too?
17. Every disturbing article or disturbing interview starts with " I don't want to trigger panic, but…"
18. You can't see your older mother or grandmother, but you can take a taxi and meet an older taxi driver.
19. You can walk around with a friend but not with your family if they don't live under the same roof.
20. You are safe if you maintain the appropriate social distance, but you can’t go out with friends or strangers at the safe social distance.
21. The virus remains active on different surfaces for two hours, no, four, no, six, no, we didn't say hours, maybe days? But it takes a damp environment. Oh no, not necessarily.
22. The virus stays in the air - well no, or yes, maybe, especially in a closed room, in one hour a sick person can infect ten, so if it falls, all our children were already infected at school before it was closed. But remember, if you stay at the recommended social distance, however in certain circumstances you should maintain a greater distance, which, studies show, the virus can travel further, maybe.
23. We count the number of deaths but we don't know how many people are infected as we have only tested so far those who were "almost dead" to find out if that's what they will die of…
24. We have no treatment, except that there may be one that apparently is not dangerous unless you take too much (which is the case with all medications).
25. We should stay locked up until the virus disappears, but it will only disappear if we achieve collective immunity, so when it circulates… but we must no longer be locked up for that?
Of course this is facetious...but to the extreme of making the point that what can "be in the grips of the unknown"...this thing fits that bill in spades. At least as men now presently know and understand. And if one present themselves as able to be in its grip.
This "thing" is almost too perfect. (That's always a good clue..."almost") Do I help by being huddled up with my family...or if unknowingly infected...might my "huddling up" be all that is danger to them? I don't know. What did I touch? Who touched what I touched? Who touched them before they touched what I touched? Who packed this? Where did it come from? Did I just walk through a previous cough by someone now in another aisle? Am I over 60? Does my wife being 59 allow me to go "whew!...dodging that bullet!"? Did I clean...enough? Did I forget anything? How would I know? Is my neighbor...threat? Am I threat to my neighbor...and on and on and on. That is...if we get on that merry go round. It's almost "too" perfect a threat!
God? In any of that? A threat? Suppose a perfect threat is not a threat at all...? Suppose...like that guy in the movie who puffs out his chest against the hero who is telling him to back off from hovering over his child or it will end bad for him...the "bad guy" says "are you threatening me?"...and the laconic hero says..."No, just making a promise".
We have promises...and we have instructions. We like "good promises"...but we might admit...being instructed is not as readily sought. We don't jump at opportunity for instruction (unless we first see benefit)...as we do for claiming promises...do we? And it takes whatever it takes in God's patience to teach us..."the promise is in receiving the instruction". For the promise of instruction...is in the Instructor...unless we somehow yet believe He can be made separate from His word. God forbid!
Is it not a good thing that knowing this (if we even know it of ourselves) one is purposed (not by our making Him so, but by God's ordination) to be our teacher...regardless of our disposition toward instruction?
So, to the all purpose verse: "Everything that can be threatened will be threatened until only what is not subject to threat...remains."
Do you feel threat? Of what? Against what? It's obvious...almost too plainly obvious that in this "thing", trust in man, his knowledge, his understanding, his knowing of how this "thing" works and is working...is totally unreliable, confusing, contradictory, and to this present painfully hopeless. If we "look there"...we are only met with the "no comfort" of things. Kinda like fulfillment of a promise..."Cursed is the man who trusts in man, who makes flesh his arm". Wow...maybe it's never been so plain to some of us...while yet others may still be looking...hoping...trusting..."they'll find something, they'll make something...they'll (we'll) do something..." Really? What tells you this? History? Is that the same history that also tells you the most plainly irrefutable thing about man? All men die. Now, do you like trusting...in history?
Take advantage of this "teachable moment". It is not for the world...but for us as beloved children...a moment thrust as instruction...of seeming presence...so that the All Present One is seen. If you had trust in yesterday to "all will continue as it always has", and has not been shown plainly as vanity...we can take that lesson. Hand to plow without looking back...says the instructor full of all promise.
If tomorrow feels under threat because we have gotten so use to "borrowing" pleasure from a future of our imaginations...we can take a lesson. "Take no thought for tomorrow" says the instructor in Whom is all promise. We have never had anything but today, regardless of their seeming number...apportioned to us. And if we have failed to hold...even what may appear to us in joyous anticipation, in the firmest of "Lord willing", may we take instruction.
Food? Instructions and promise.
Dearly loved and now so plainly vulnerable "little ones" in whom our hearts are now curiously extended as present, and vulnerable "in them"...did we once trust in our own watchful care for them as sufficient? Does our heart feel threatened? Rubber and road surely meet here. Does the One who sees the sparrow...see me, and all my vulnerability? All my vulnerability in those with whom my heart is un-untangleably knit as beloved?
And the rubberest of road meeting of all...that must be settled, and if this moment is in all ONLY pointing to that, may it be to us settled..."Does He care?" Or is He "off tending another plate?" Or worse...disinterested or barely amused...observer?
If we do not see how very much, how very far, how to the most extreme of doing and being He humbled Himself in Christ to us...to be for us...may today be the signal day of all for us.
I do not write this as one immune to anything, God knows. And I do not write as one made full in obedience. But I do not believe these questions as such, and as such...are only found by me "floating in the air". Being whispered from the secret places of spirit...to Spirit. Things are to be settled. "Today if we hear His voice..." Today.
For this verse of truth remains:
"Everything that can be shaken will be shaken till only what is unshakable remains."
and
Let us therefore go boldly to the throne of grace...to receive grace to help in time of need.
And let us not forget, God forbid we forget...in this day when the world says one thing we are to look past without reviling, "Draw your circle small". But knowing no lie is of the truth.
"When one suffers we all suffer"
There is great promise...indeed all of promises in our instructor who tells us we are members of one another. To believe Him in all things is the extension of grace toward us that remains unfathomable, how a patient Spirit will work in the work of God in things of clay (O! so very vulnerable!) to fulfill:
"This is the work of God that you believe upon Him whom He has sent"
Yes. We are to "clear the air" of any and all doubt...of fear...of threat..in the unity of the Spirit that prays through us and for us all, as one body.
The world is saying "don't touch...be careful what you touch"
The Lord, our Lord...is easily touched. may we also be so, of one another. And see the air cleared to an open Heaven above us all.
Let's file it under the all purpose scripture "everything that can be shaken will be shaken till only what is unshakable remains"
All purpose in that anything that is less than perfect can be inserted there. "Playing with the scripture(s)" is asking for trouble, surely, but there remains that they are given us for instruction. "Everything that can be deceived will be deceived till only what cannot be deceived remains"..."Everything that can suffer corruption will suffer corruption till only the incorruptible remains"
And this especially applicable in this seeming present situation:
Everything that can look to trust in everything else will trust in everything else, till only what is not "everything else" remains. Till the One...who is One...is all, and only.
I say "seeming present" situation because for now, and in this now...there is something struggling furiously to make itself "the present thing"...that thing that would consume all of the present with its presence. Demanding attention. In a manner of speaking it is saying "I am the most present thing". Pay attention. Worship...me. I am...here. I am to be what you have in your eye. In your mind. In your full attention.
We might ask ourselves, if we care to, how does such a thing lay claim to that place, especially among the people of God...if so be that the people of God can be moved by it? How can something demand our attention...that is not...God? How can a "thing"...hold such sway? Surely it cannot...apart from God's will and purpose.
That is understood, is it not? Unless one cares to see God as one with many plates in the air, struggling to keep them all in balance, running to and fro to keep all from crashing down in disarray, frantic. The god who knows "uh oh!". In simpler words...a god...who is not God. The god...ignorant of a sparrow's fall. Unknowing of the hairs on your head. The god who is the "reacting god"...not the only acting God. The God of all purpose.
And God...who alone has every right (and good purpose) to our rendering attentions to Him as the God, is the God above all other gods. And so we might again, if so presently provoked, ask..."who, or what is always...most present?" If I am shaky in the present (and who could hide this from God?), how so? By what mechanism has this been allowed?
(And some of you, already way ahead, rightly ask this question "Why is this man writing about things...is he not himself displaying himself as in reaction to "things"...therefore...what God does he claim to have, if he himself is no less moved by "things"?" Yes!...precisely...that's the sort of question to ask!)
Yes!
What if God has purposed to make Himself known through...things? Not that the thing is anything of itself...but that in the "thing" might be revealed either "a" or the purpose of God? Are you not a thing through which God has chosen to make His name known? Am I? Not that we are anything but just that...a "thing"...but that the Spirit might show His exceeding power...that even through the weakest of things...He (the Spirit)...is able to reveal the mind of, the purpose of...our God? Do not the "heavens declare?" Creation itself...declare? Not that the creation is God...but they testify of the Creator...by the Spirit's power to reveal.
So, "this seeming present" thing. Can God be seen...even through that? Do you not find it interesting...if not funny, how this thing would seek to appear? Or better...how that it is indeed funny how it seems to be appearing? A friend posted this yesterday. Can you "see" God in it? Can you "see" through to a perfection, or at least a precision of some sort?
It is frustrating...
????
Here are the official Coronavirus guidelines:
1. Basically, you can't leave the house for any reason, but if you have to, then you can.
2. Masks are useless, but maybe you have to wear one, it can save you, it is useless, but maybe it is mandatory as well.
3. Stores are closed, except those that are open.
4. You should not go to hospitals unless you have to go there. Same applies to doctors, you should only go there in case of emergency, provided you are not too sick.
5. This virus is deadly but still not too scary, except that sometimes it actually leads to a global disaster.
6. Gloves won't help, but they can still help.
7. Everyone needs to stay HOME, but it's important to GO OUT.
8. There is no shortage of groceries in the supermarket, but there are many things missing when you go there in the evening, but not in the morning. Sometimes.
9. The virus has no effect on children except those it affects.
10. Animals are not affected, but there is still a cat that tested positive in Belgium in February when no one had been tested, plus a few tigers here and there…
11. You will have many symptoms when you are sick, but you can also get sick without symptoms, have symptoms without being sick, or be contagious without having symptoms. Oh, my..
12. In order not to get sick, you have to eat well and exercise, but eat whatever you have on hand and it's better not to go out, well, but no…
13. It's better to get some fresh air, but you get looked at very wrong when you get some fresh air, and most importantly, you don't go to parks or walk. But don’t sit down, except that you can do that now if you are old, but not for too long or if you are pregnant (but not too old).
14. You can't go to retirement homes, but you have to take care of the elderly and bring food and medication.
15. If you are sick, you can't go out, but you can go to the pharmacy.
16. You can get restaurant food delivered to the house, which may have been prepared by people who didn't wear masks or gloves. But you have to have your groceries decontaminated outside for 3 hours. Pizza too?
17. Every disturbing article or disturbing interview starts with " I don't want to trigger panic, but…"
18. You can't see your older mother or grandmother, but you can take a taxi and meet an older taxi driver.
19. You can walk around with a friend but not with your family if they don't live under the same roof.
20. You are safe if you maintain the appropriate social distance, but you can’t go out with friends or strangers at the safe social distance.
21. The virus remains active on different surfaces for two hours, no, four, no, six, no, we didn't say hours, maybe days? But it takes a damp environment. Oh no, not necessarily.
22. The virus stays in the air - well no, or yes, maybe, especially in a closed room, in one hour a sick person can infect ten, so if it falls, all our children were already infected at school before it was closed. But remember, if you stay at the recommended social distance, however in certain circumstances you should maintain a greater distance, which, studies show, the virus can travel further, maybe.
23. We count the number of deaths but we don't know how many people are infected as we have only tested so far those who were "almost dead" to find out if that's what they will die of…
24. We have no treatment, except that there may be one that apparently is not dangerous unless you take too much (which is the case with all medications).
25. We should stay locked up until the virus disappears, but it will only disappear if we achieve collective immunity, so when it circulates… but we must no longer be locked up for that?
Of course this is facetious...but to the extreme of making the point that what can "be in the grips of the unknown"...this thing fits that bill in spades. At least as men now presently know and understand. And if one present themselves as able to be in its grip.
This "thing" is almost too perfect. (That's always a good clue..."almost") Do I help by being huddled up with my family...or if unknowingly infected...might my "huddling up" be all that is danger to them? I don't know. What did I touch? Who touched what I touched? Who touched them before they touched what I touched? Who packed this? Where did it come from? Did I just walk through a previous cough by someone now in another aisle? Am I over 60? Does my wife being 59 allow me to go "whew!...dodging that bullet!"? Did I clean...enough? Did I forget anything? How would I know? Is my neighbor...threat? Am I threat to my neighbor...and on and on and on. That is...if we get on that merry go round. It's almost "too" perfect a threat!
God? In any of that? A threat? Suppose a perfect threat is not a threat at all...? Suppose...like that guy in the movie who puffs out his chest against the hero who is telling him to back off from hovering over his child or it will end bad for him...the "bad guy" says "are you threatening me?"...and the laconic hero says..."No, just making a promise".
We have promises...and we have instructions. We like "good promises"...but we might admit...being instructed is not as readily sought. We don't jump at opportunity for instruction (unless we first see benefit)...as we do for claiming promises...do we? And it takes whatever it takes in God's patience to teach us..."the promise is in receiving the instruction". For the promise of instruction...is in the Instructor...unless we somehow yet believe He can be made separate from His word. God forbid!
Is it not a good thing that knowing this (if we even know it of ourselves) one is purposed (not by our making Him so, but by God's ordination) to be our teacher...regardless of our disposition toward instruction?
So, to the all purpose verse: "Everything that can be threatened will be threatened until only what is not subject to threat...remains."
Do you feel threat? Of what? Against what? It's obvious...almost too plainly obvious that in this "thing", trust in man, his knowledge, his understanding, his knowing of how this "thing" works and is working...is totally unreliable, confusing, contradictory, and to this present painfully hopeless. If we "look there"...we are only met with the "no comfort" of things. Kinda like fulfillment of a promise..."Cursed is the man who trusts in man, who makes flesh his arm". Wow...maybe it's never been so plain to some of us...while yet others may still be looking...hoping...trusting..."they'll find something, they'll make something...they'll (we'll) do something..." Really? What tells you this? History? Is that the same history that also tells you the most plainly irrefutable thing about man? All men die. Now, do you like trusting...in history?
Take advantage of this "teachable moment". It is not for the world...but for us as beloved children...a moment thrust as instruction...of seeming presence...so that the All Present One is seen. If you had trust in yesterday to "all will continue as it always has", and has not been shown plainly as vanity...we can take that lesson. Hand to plow without looking back...says the instructor full of all promise.
If tomorrow feels under threat because we have gotten so use to "borrowing" pleasure from a future of our imaginations...we can take a lesson. "Take no thought for tomorrow" says the instructor in Whom is all promise. We have never had anything but today, regardless of their seeming number...apportioned to us. And if we have failed to hold...even what may appear to us in joyous anticipation, in the firmest of "Lord willing", may we take instruction.
Food? Instructions and promise.
Dearly loved and now so plainly vulnerable "little ones" in whom our hearts are now curiously extended as present, and vulnerable "in them"...did we once trust in our own watchful care for them as sufficient? Does our heart feel threatened? Rubber and road surely meet here. Does the One who sees the sparrow...see me, and all my vulnerability? All my vulnerability in those with whom my heart is un-untangleably knit as beloved?
And the rubberest of road meeting of all...that must be settled, and if this moment is in all ONLY pointing to that, may it be to us settled..."Does He care?" Or is He "off tending another plate?" Or worse...disinterested or barely amused...observer?
If we do not see how very much, how very far, how to the most extreme of doing and being He humbled Himself in Christ to us...to be for us...may today be the signal day of all for us.
I do not write this as one immune to anything, God knows. And I do not write as one made full in obedience. But I do not believe these questions as such, and as such...are only found by me "floating in the air". Being whispered from the secret places of spirit...to Spirit. Things are to be settled. "Today if we hear His voice..." Today.
For this verse of truth remains:
"Everything that can be shaken will be shaken till only what is unshakable remains."
and
Let us therefore go boldly to the throne of grace...to receive grace to help in time of need.
And let us not forget, God forbid we forget...in this day when the world says one thing we are to look past without reviling, "Draw your circle small". But knowing no lie is of the truth.
"When one suffers we all suffer"
There is great promise...indeed all of promises in our instructor who tells us we are members of one another. To believe Him in all things is the extension of grace toward us that remains unfathomable, how a patient Spirit will work in the work of God in things of clay (O! so very vulnerable!) to fulfill:
"This is the work of God that you believe upon Him whom He has sent"
Yes. We are to "clear the air" of any and all doubt...of fear...of threat..in the unity of the Spirit that prays through us and for us all, as one body.
The world is saying "don't touch...be careful what you touch"
The Lord, our Lord...is easily touched. may we also be so, of one another. And see the air cleared to an open Heaven above us all.
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