11 Elohim

The word that became the lead word to trigger my writing was the Hebrew Elohim.

Let’s start there.

Elohim, I found, is the earliest reference to the Judeo-Christian God and His plural nature in the Bible. Its usage occurs in the first paragraph and the first half of the first verse of Genesis, the first book in the Old Testament.

Genesis1:1a “In the beginning God . . .” (NKJV)Hebrew Elohim Strong’s #430. God, a plural description for the godhead.

Combined with later reference to the Holy Spirit (Genesis1:2), ‘the seed’ (Genesis 3:15) and the Word (New Testament, John 1:1-4, 14), elohim is considered by some to be the earliest reference to the triune—Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Amazing, huh? God identified as a plural being from the beginning of Scripture—three in one—in the Old Testament—for Jews, the first book of the Torah.

I did not know (until I began looking at The Word in depth, enlightening references ready at hand) from reading an English translation that the word “God” in that first verse had any more significance than had any other use of the word God in the Bible. I actually thought that God, at least in the Old Testament, just meant who I called God the Father or who my Jewish friends called the God of Moses or the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Pretty vague notion really.

But search my Christian background all you will, you will never find a previous thought in it like this one —the triune God possibly being the Jewish God in more ways than one. Now that I think of it, though, God sent angels and visitations of the Holy Spirit to various Old Testament figures, and the promised Messiah is a principle refrain in the Old Testament.

So here is where the divergence for Christian and Jew really occurs—in the identity of the Messiah. Jewish thought frequently saw their God as a less-than-specific many-unified-in-one. Yet still their scripture and teaching pointed specifically to Holy Spirit and Messiah and is remembered that way. Thorough reading and analysis will always keep coming back to that certainty.

We Christians say Jesus Christ of Nazareth is the promised Messiah (as do many “Completed” Jews) while ongoing Judiasm says no, the Messiah (The conquering king for whom they so yearned—and I don’t blame them, times were hard for them back then and now!) has not yet come. They still look forward to that coming.

When I first met this word Elohim, I was in a Precept study of Genesis and was in the first week of class (It was a non-denominational study--Jews Christians, persons of any faith, one-and-all were invited with no mention of affiliation allowed into the study.) The word, its meaning and therefore its possibilities and significance riveted me. For weeks it found its way into my thoughts, my conversations, my encounters. Its powerful truth still manages my thinking. Did I believe it? Oh, yes! Believe me, none but none of the authors included in the Torah and the Canonical Bible chose their words haphazardly. In this world today people may choose their words haphazardly (I’ve done it.) but not the authors of the Torah and Bible.

We have God’s testimony that the words of Scripture are the breathed word of God, word impressed upon the heart of each Biblical author. 2 Timothy 3:16 states, “All Scripture is given by inspiration (inbreathing of life) of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” Individuals can disagree over this or that on this subject, people of every age disagree with everything and anything, but the chosen word still rules then and now.

God, from the beginning of the Mosaic books was identified as a triune God. Astounding!

Like it or not, admit it or not, Jew and Christian alike share a plural God!

And to this day, still quite a strain to try to discuss between Jew and Christian.

To be continued . . .

10 Deployment

The success I experienced in my thirties in the three areas of management, materials and methods—or the 3M as I call them, made the preliminary years of my campaign full of new understandings, important books, and outstanding methods of discovery and readied me for deployment. Armed with these resources and practices, I learned about the importance of learning, dear reader. And I learned and learned and learned and then learned more, and still practice active learning today as I continue my walk with God. LEARN is a HUGE Christian word. Ask the Apostle Paul. If he used it once, he used it a thousand times (as the saying goes). There is no substitute for ongoing learning.

But let’s recap. These 3M were essential preparations, make-no-mistake, and I realize now that they served brilliantly to propel me rapidly forward and into a personal and intimate relationship with God and away from my airhead debutante ways. Further, they both legitimized and anchored the spiritual growth coming in my forties and flourishing to this very day. And . . . they launched the great deployment that accomplished all these feats! My campaign began in earnest. I embarked upon a sixteen year deployment—action in the trenches, you might say.

How time does fly! Those were some really active 16 years and I just kept moving. I started with my vague generalities about God and looked for specifics. From there on, the Judeo-Christian God became the center of my life, filling me so the brim with knowledge, experience and love of Him that you, valued reader, now find me here at my computer having to sort it all out and glad to do so.

I read the whole Bible over and over again, (with Kathleen and on my own) and Richard read the whole Bible with Apochrypha aloud to the three of us over a three year period, too. I studied Christian history (Christian History of the World and The History of the Kings of England, a chronological study of the popes of the Vatican and read the occasional biography of the saints) and joined Bible Study Classes (rejecting various courses steeped in modern criticism (I call it believing lies.), and finally settling upon Kay Arthur’s Precept Upon Precept Studies and “Lord” series.

At the 16-year end point, my picture of the Judeo-Christian God had grown huge, too huge to wrap my mind around (In the words of Luanne, a fellow pilgrim and classmate. Her great grandfather was a Baptist rider, too!). But, in retrospect, every day of those sixteen years was precious! No despair there, just powerful, nurturing answers and a blooming relationship with God.

And it was in the summer of the 16^th year that I sat down and wrote a précis on what was happening to me and why. In the pursuit of this writing, the Holy Spirit consolidated all I had learned with a whole new category of verses and words, radically reshaping my thinking. So I am going to use those new and old words to walk us through the emergence of this new thinking.

To be continued . . .

9 Methods

Admittedly, there were some methods mixed in with the materials last blog. But today I’m going to strive for more purity—mostly methods that is. I really want to cover the Big 5 Methods that emerged as the core of my campaign and as most important for a relationship with God. And then I want to add one extra. So here they are: Study, Prayer, Worship Praise and Thanks.

1. And the extra one . . . Mentoring.

Heavily armed back then with great management and terrific materials, I was more than adequately equipped to embark upon these methods, starting with the obvious— Method #1—study of or poring over the scriptures (2 Timothy 3:16-17, NKJV). Over time, several remarkable patterns of engagement with God arose from my campaign and I learned to just go with them (Lesson: Trust the Holy Spirit’s promptings when you’re SURE it is the Holy Spirit. To be sure, check the scriptures for corroboration). With great consistency, material seemed to leap off the page at me. Single words attracted my attention, occupying me for days on end. And overall, I developed a hunger for more and more teachings that to this day has not subsided (nor do I expect ever will).

It is well-known in the advanced meditative community that the Holy Spirit, when active, routinely highlights scripture and its words in the mind, giving them compelling intensity. Richard and I heard a nun speak to a Christ the King Cathedral, PACE forum back in the late 1980’s, describing her personal experience with this phenomena. Her testimony and other confirmation (from study of the lives of the saints), along with my own experience, have led me to the perception that the quest for God is God-driven and He summons what we need, when we need it. Then, like a mastermind with a giant puzzle before him, He beautifully fits the pieces together over time. Remember, of course, this interaction always requires on our part conscious pursuit of all things the Holy Spirit offers.

I’m going to put the one extra method in here because this is where I want it. In Blog 8-Materials, I referred to a mentor in the practice of Morning Prayer. Let me say here that Christian mentoring as a method of spiritual growth is a profound help, and the Holy Spirit is the believer’s indwelling first choice in guides. But I have also had several other mentors at various stages in my life—my Grandfather, a Presbyterian pastor; a Christian lady of mature years and Christian practices; Kathleen, who is a great inspiration to one-and-all; Adele, who is a living embodiment of courage; Mandy, whose sharpness of vision is gratifying to say the least; my sister, Anne, who has gotten me out of more scrapes than I can number; and, of course, my spiritually-gifted, can-do husband. And more. I have needed these precious people. They have ushered me through many trials and helped me avoid countless pitfalls. Always be ready to allow qualified fellow Christians to amend your thinking, but if and only if, what they advise complies with scriptural teaching— another big lesson to learn.

But, of course, then there is prayer—Method #2. I pray my way through everything. Scripture says, “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17, NKJV), not hard at all once it becomes a way of life. And it is amazing how prayer keeps God in mind. Human thought like a boat without an anchor easily drifts into trouble. I even pray my way through the line at the grocery store, asking the Lord to calm my busy, self-absorbed frustration with others “in my way”, so to speak. Believe me, spiritual disciplines give you great control over your flesh but not without the ongoing battle called spiritual warfare, and prayer IS the battle in spiritual warfare (more on spiritual warfare—again, later).

Method #3 is worship. Now if you want to experience Christian worship at its most glorious, there are several choices. The Roman Catholic Holy Mass is by far the most riveting corporate worship experience there is. With its drama and pageantry, the Vatican or an Archdiocese at any High Holy Season has no match. On the other hand, Protestant festivals of song transform the worship experience with ethereal brilliance. And private personal delight in the Lord is always unsurpassed worship. In short, regularly enjoy God—that is worship (Psalm 63:2-6, NKJV)!

Method #4 is praise: That simply means to regularly give credit where credit is due—to God. Regularly remember His works in the Bible and in your life and express your awe and appreciation for them (regular is a Big Christian Word). Create praise markers, by that I mean mark those times of provision and protection from God to you with a praise offering. Give a special gift to the church. Or take a prayer pilgrimage. Or give money to a charity as a remembrance. Get creative. Remember King David? No matter how distressed David is in his psalms, he always ends in praise, “I will sing to the Lord, because He has dealt bountifully with me” (Psalm13:6, NKJV).

Method #5: Thanks. It is easy to ask and receive and just as easy to forget to thank God when he delivers. Therefore when I pray I give thanks THEN and THERE, in advance (Philippians 4:6, NKJV). It is the gracious thing to do and thanks set my head straight. The act of giving thanks gaspingly reminds me how much I am indebted to God. How generous and open-handed He is with me. How present He is to me. And as I notice, my mind registers the reality of my experience with the Holy Father and what a miracle such privileged contact truly is.

To conclude today’s blog let me stress this final point. There are many more methods to discover in a spiritual odyssey, but, I repeat, these above are core. I guess these methods are also practices—right practices and profitable practices. And, if adopted, they open wide a doorway to God.

To be continued . . .

8 Materials

As for materials, dear reader, you may be wondering, being the thoughtful sort, what then became my sources of bona fide materials mobilized during those intervening years before my mid-forties? First, please note that the time came when I knew I had to publicly renounce all those alternate lifestyle books (which is what I call all the many plural approaches to God we reviewed in Gods-A to Z) and I had to renounce them on my face, to God, and then remove them from my bookshelves. I threw them in the trash, though I should have burned them so that by no accident could they possibly harm any unsuspecting someone else. They have no place in a set-apart (Holy) Christian home.

Next, we can fast forward through years of floundering around a good deal at material selection, searching for good teachings about God and His ways (documented, faithful to the scriptures, neither contrived nor self-serving) and rejecting various dubious takes on Him (cults, extremist groups). Nothing comes easy, does it?

Eventually, though, in my mid-forties, I found many good teachings in the Holy Roman Catholic Church, the conservative Baptist Church (the denomination particularly dedicated to teachings on all things Judeo-Christian) and from the Moody Bible Institute (similarly dedicated). To continue with the military metaphor, these three mainstream establishments became my principal armory for the specialized weapons I needed for a spiritual campaign. From them, I drew an arsenal of state-of-the-art “weaponry”.

Leading off, there was The Bible (Old and New Testament) in the original Hebrew and Greek, compiled and authorized by the Holy Roman Catholic Church and translated into the Latin Vulgate, then into English. The English translation I favored for so long bore the Catholic Imprimatur or stamp of correctness in translation—always a good sign, and included the Apocrypha or wisdom books.

Not that I knew how to read Hebrew and Greek, but by expanding my arsenal further, I was greatly assisted in correctly interpreting individual words by such reputable classics as Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words, Kay Arthur’s How to Study Your Bible Precept by Precept, and Henry M. Morris’ The Genesis Record. These materials neither added to nor subtracted from scripture. Instead they taught the importance of believing in scripture in its original language (not accepting verbatim any translation purely on its own), proving scripture with scripture or, alternately, described how to build a teaching on any subject from scripture itself, all tremendously reliable methods. And over these years I disciplined myself to read and learn from scripture, not from books about scripture. There is no substitute for scripture.

My all-time favorite study Bible is The Spirit-filled Life Bible, any edition, though the Dr. Charles F. Stanley Life Principles Bible is no less than a true blessing for anyone who chooses it (as is anything Dr. Stanley writes, photographs, or speaks). His monthly Early Light devotions are published in his free “In Touch” magazine (to order: go to www.Intouch.org or call 800-333-5848) and they are a powerful daily resource that our family as a whole does use every single day. Dr. Stanley currently has a new book and workbook out on how to BUILD an intimate relationship with God called In Step with God. I quote from “In Touch”, “The In Step with God Workbook will help you see that to know the Father better, you must build an intimate relationship with Him.” Believe me when I tell you that I can see from this vantage point in my life that this spiritual odyssey I have been on has been building me solidly INTO an intimate relationship with God. And I can’t wait to get my hands on this new work by Dr. Stanley! It is also available at the web address or phone number above. His son, Andy Stanley, pastor of Northpoint Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, is also a current-day, fine resource for insightful and correct teachings and writings.

At this point, I must also remember to recommend to you the Anglican Book of Common Prayer (that is, a certified copy of the Anglican Standard Book of Common Prayer). When you haven’t got a clue how to approach the Bible or prayer, this book structures your approach and summons the grace and mystery of a relationship with God with irreproachable inspired form.

Separately, Anglicans also teach and encourage the various postures of prayer—on your couch (in bed), kneeling, standing, lifting hands, kneeling forehead touching the floor, and praying face down lying on the floor arms extended. For spontaneous or formal prayer, I have learned to choose as appropriate from the several postures. Postures teach and reinforce in me a correct attitude toward God—He is the All-sufficient Father, I the needy child. Amen.

All this structure is no substitute for eventually entering on your own into mature conversation with God, but to begin to sense the great scope and potential of prayer and meditation the prayer book and Anglican practices will do that beautifully.

The Anglicans also have a great tradition of morning and evening prayer. For two years I practiced (with a mentor) regular Morning Prayer in an Anglican church sanctuary—great discipline, beautiful atmosphere! And I learned that prayer always steadies one through anything. Life goes on, but it is better if it goes on with steadying, I assure you.

Along with the prayer book, regular washing with prayer and the Word and the postures of prayer, the Anglicans teach journaling—keeping a daily record of your spiritual progress. This practice is excellent for dealing with huge amounts of material as each day gives you a fresh page to interact with, encouraging you to remember that each day is a fresh day and to leave discouragement behind (an absolute necessity). I prefer 200-page college-ruled spiral bound notebooks, the kind with dividers in them so I can group subject matter—such as one section for notes on sermons, another for notes on prayer, and another on class notes, research and so on. I get a new binder every year or so. To store all this paperwork, I use numbered and labeled “butlers” or library magazine holders (currently 14 in number, or 5 linear feet of shelf space) and a directory in which to enter the contents of each butler for easy reference.

Back to Bibles! The Westminster Study Bible, King James Version (KJV), is a literary masterpiece though one must be careful with all publications of the Bible, that the notes of the editors, the introductions, etc. are not steeped in modern criticism (I have referred to modern criticism before and will go into it in depth another time.) The Message is an amazing amplified Bible, meaning the text is written to explain the scriptures as you read them. Yet I prefer the NKJV Spirit Filled Life Bible specifically because interpretation is kept out of the verse and sequestered in footnotes, appendices and comment blocks. Thus I am always able to distinguish the current-day voice of editors and other contributors from that of God through His chosen scriptural authors.

That’s a good run through of the materials. Though you can be sure that there have been more in the past and there will be more to come. But these were important to address at this point. Now on to the methods!

To be continued . . .

7 Mobilization

Sorry I’ve been absent for a week but Kathleen was here for a visit!

Let’s pick up where I left off—my quest for God.

By the end of my last blog, I had a new journey in mind. Although today, campaign seems a lot better choice of word than journey. According to my small but trusty American Heritage Dictionary (when you live in a condo, spiffy as it may be, everything has to be small), campaign means (among other things) an organized operation to accomplish a purpose. For me, getting to know God required a really organized operation let me tell you! (Dear reader, the purpose of the next few blogs is to make this organized operation much easier for YOU! Please feel free to let these findings be your guide as you see fit. Or not.)

Campaign can also mean a series of military operations undertaken to achieve a large scale objective during a war (for me a war on ignorance). And every good soldier knows that a good campaign always-but-always is preceded by a proper period of mobilization prior to deployment.

So mobilize I did, starting with marshaling my forces (also a campaign term – ask Gaius Julius Caesar about how busy marshaling forces kept him!)

I needed management!

I needed materials!

I needed methods!

The management part needed was obvious. All the while that I talk to you about my spiritual odyssey I was still doing tons of other stuff, too, you know, though it may not seem like it—like running a house, doing errands, orchestrating events, being an aide at Kathleen’s school, writing a book, enjoying-enjoying-enjoying my husband who is the best part of every day, bathing the dog, weeding the garden, volunteering, taking aerobics, weight training, Christian Yoga, shopping, need I say more? Woohoo! And that meant I needed superior management and superior scheduling to combine all these efforts plus include a new campaign. That superior effort came (What a blessing!) from my husband who routinely helped me project, re-project and integrate all my multiple goals, objectives and undertakings. He is a maestro of orchestrating messes!

On the other hand, though, the materials and methods I needed to acquire required a more piecemeal approach.

To be continued . . .