Divine Encounters: Mapping Your Spiritual Life

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1 Divine Encounters: Mapping Your Spiritual Life SF212 LESSON 02 of 5 John Worgul, Ph.D. Experience: Professor, Bethel Seminary Summary: Spiritual formation means living in awareness of God s action in our lives. God is always trying to get our attention; His presence is always pressing in upon us. The problem is that we do not recognize this and even tend to block God out. Sometimes God breaks into our lives in dramatic ways, and He does this in order to lift our lives into a higher level of spiritual awareness and purpose. We call these divine encounters; and when these happen, whatever form or shape they take, they are always accompanied by promise. God always motivates by promise. It is through the grace of divine encounters that God motivates us to discover and realize our purpose and destiny in this life. Welcome to Lecture 2 of our life mapping course. Today we are going to discuss how life mapping aids us in the spiritual discipline of memory. In the Bible, we are always called upon to remember the great works of God, which nurtures a heart of gratitude and praise. To remember is to be present to God who is and always was present to us. Conversely, to forget is evidence of apostasy, a refusal to acknowledge the reality of God in our lives. It is all too easy to slip into forgetfulness. God is consistently pressing into our lives. The problem is that we are not skilled in discerning His presence, and what is more, we actively block Him out by our impurity, idolatry, fears, and anger. In spite of this, God is intent on breaking through to us because He loves us and intends to do a great work in us. Sometimes God breaks through in dramatic ways. For the purpose of this course, we call these special events encounters. Divine encounters are inseparable from faith in the Bible. We might even say that faith is birthed in our hearts by encounter. Encounters take a myriad of different shapes and forms; God is an artist when painting on the canvas of our lives He doesn t seem to like doing the same thing twice. One thing is always the same, however, and that is that wherever there is an encounter, there 1 of 5

2 usually is a promise. God often motivates us by promise. God s Encounter with Abraham Let us see how this works by observing how God relates with Abraham, the father of faith. God encounters him in Genesis 12:1-3. We do not know how God does this, whether by vision, an inner voice, or an audible voice. What is important to us is that out of this encounter comes a series of promises. The first three promises are personal: God will make him a great nation, bless him, and make his name great (12:2). These three personal promises are followed by a phrase that might best be translated Be a blessing, which structurally comes at the middle of the divine speech in this passage. Finally, three promises conclude the divine speech directed to all humanity: God will bless those who bless Abraham, curse those who curse him, and through him all the nations of the world will be blessed. Much could be said about this, but here let us stress the point that God motivates Abraham to leave his country and family by making promises to him. These promises are two-dimensional. They are personal and tailor-made for him in his circumstances. However, on the basis of these personal promises, God expects that he will be a blessing to others; indeed, the whole world. He is to be a blessing. Moreover, his faith, which is motivated by divine promise, becomes the very standard by which the whole world will relate to God. Spiritual Encounter Herein is the essence of spiritual encounter. God meets His chosen right where they are as a Stranger suddenly at the soul s door. In excitement that wells up from previously unknown regions of their hearts, they know they must open up to the Divine Visitor. This strange yet familiar One penetrates into their consciousness promising things that are uniquely suited for them as individuals. For Abraham, it meant land. Land, especially land promised by the Creator, had a theological significance to it and was connected to Eden, from which humanity was exiled. The promise of offspring who would grow into a mighty nation was given in the context of the list of the 70 nations of the world. There were many nations, but Abraham s would be greatest of all. The promise of a great name must be understood in the context of Babel, for it was in search of greatness that humanity strove to build its tower and city. Every human heart desires a blessing, that power by which all 2 of 5

3 life is sustained in its original blessedness, yet it was to Abraham that He would give it. All that humanity in its fallenness was searching for by its own power, for its own glory, God promised to Abraham. When we step away and consider all this, we see the absurdity of Abraham s situation. Here is one solitary semi-nomad wandering between Shinar and Egypt, the two oldest and proudest civilizations of the earth, attaining what these giants could only grasp for true greatness. Herein is the measure of divine promise: Its fulfillment must be absolutely impossible, completely beyond human means. Therefore, Sarah, Abraham s wife, is barren. Moreover, she must be old, well beyond childbearing age, before she gets her son. God draws the soul by making impossible promises. Though the soul might at first laugh out in disbelief like Sarah did in the tent, it becomes inflamed with faith, knowing that something holy will happen. It must be this way, for it is only then that God Almighty gets the glory. When it comes to matters of divine promise, only that which is accomplished supernaturally is pleasing to God; all else serves only to bring attention to humans, who are like the dust in the wind. God s Promises; Human Faith But God doesn t stop here. When He singles out individuals and sweetens their souls with promises, it is always for an end greater than themselves. On the basis of these personal promises, Abraham was to be a blessing. Moreover, Abraham in his personal insignificance and in his faith was to become a symbol for all humanity. All the arrogant who refuse to come to terms with their own insignificance, rejecting faith in the One who works the impossible, in effect curse Abraham. They will be cursed in turn. Those who embrace their nothingness and grab hold of Abraham s God in faith shall in turn be blessed with Abraham s blessings. When God singles out individuals with promise, He has an eye for the world. In Hebrews 11:1-2 we see that faith is being sure ([hupostasis] substance) of what we hope for, and being certain ([progmatôn] matter, proof ) of what we do not see. Here we have a paradox; absolute certainty without empirical evidence and sometimes apparently against all evidence. Faith is not a blindfolded leap; it is not a shot in the dark. It arises out of encounter with God! Faith is encounter, the certainty that comes from the encounter with the wholly Other. When this happens in our lives, we might doubt 3 of 5

4 many things, but not the encounter. The encounter is more real to us than the tree in our front yard that we see and can lean against. The burning heart that knows that God Almighty will fulfill His special and unique promise for you is the absolute bottom line of biblical experience. It is the deepest well which the faithful always resort to when all other wells go dry. It is behind every cry in the Psalter. It is that which unfailingly moves God to act with supernatural power. Consider these people: Jacob wrestling with God Almighty: He will not let Him go without a promise! Hannah in her despair: God gives her a promise, and she goes home in hope, no longer sad. King David: In gratitude he wants to build a house for God. God says, No! I will build you a house that will last forever. Simeon: You will not die until you shall see the consolation of Israel! We could continue with this list including some examples of faithful Christians today. For example, a missionary once visited the Spurgeon household, and asked to pray over Charles when he was but a small boy. In the fervor of his spirit, he called witnesses around him, and solemnly prophesied that this little boy would someday preach to multitudes, and specifically in Rowland Hill s Chapel, a famous church in England. The little boy took this to heart as a promise from God, and years later it was fulfilled. You can read about this in his autobiography, and the mighty preacher wrote a wonderful little book titled According to Promise. Personal Faith The danger of not seeing this is to live with a vague, watered down faith; that of accepting a creed, of believing that there is a God out there ordering events, of believing that He loves and saves people, but really doesn t entrust Himself to us in our day-to-day affairs by personal encounters. Faith is not a generic, one size fits all sort of thing. This type of faith is what I call evangelical deism, and it is everywhere. The less personal and unique to you and your situation, the less fire and power to keep it so is one of Satan s primary ways of undermining Christians. Now what has all of this to do with life mapping? Life mapping gives us the opportunity to reflect on our lives and see how God 4 of 5

5 has encountered us in unique ways, motivating us, and changing our lives with promise, inspiring faith. These encounters are like oases in our journey through the desert of our lives. They are peaks which lift us up above the fog where we can see clearly. They punctuate our lives. To observe them in the flow of our lives, we see the pattern of the unique tapestry God is weaving as we advance through life. We begin to see how faithful God has been, His great mercy, and the purpose for which He has called us. This realization most often evokes worship and praise, our highest activity. One thing must be made perfectly clear here. This idea of personal promises which I am laying before you has nothing to do with the name it and claim it teaching that is popular in some circles today. Promises do not arise from our own wish list, but from divine encounter. Encounters, as we shall see, are divinely arranged, unsolicited, and always take us by surprise. The promises, though they fit us and God s plans for us perfectly, are often not readily understood, and usually take years to unfold in ways we would never imagine. We will illustrate what we mean by divine encounter and promise in the next two lectures. We have now laid the theological groundwork for life mapping. In the following two lectures, I will lay out my own life map so as to illustrate the method by which this is done so that you and your mentors can create your own life maps. I think you will be amazed at what you see when you begin to examine your life. Christ-Centered Learning Anytime, Anywhere 5 of 5