Yesterday in the midst of the "education" side of integral discipleship, my 6 year old declared he did not have any "interesting" books. I'd asked them to choose from their library stash, a book regarding what people call "science", the living nature of the Word, in the realm of the visible.
The Word offered me eyes to see the Substance of this particular problem, and words to offer Thayer insight as to why he would be disappointed in the books that he himself had checked out on his library card.
It went something like this:
I remember asking you several times to go look and find books that are interesting to you in each category. What I kept seeing was you spending your attention on the children and toys about you. We stayed for enough time for you to make choices that you were happy with, but that isn't how you spent your attention. There was no lack of things that are fascinating to learn about. The problem wasn't the resources being dry.
Hold on. I want to show you why there is something to HEAR, here.
Most people are very fine with giving their attention to their phones, or making more money, or pleasure. But what might be missing is the substance they are hoping to receive. I remember being very invested in managing my Instagram account, to the defeat of effective discipleship--for myself and for you-- and being efficient and attentive in the calling He put on my life through giving me children and a husband. Abba was so merciful to show me that IT IS ALWAYS about the attention and to what it is applied...that all I have is my attention and it is only complete when it is applied to the Word Himself.
I could have stumbled through motherhood, then somehow making it to the day you and Arden are 18 & 19, and look back and only remember the moments between my eyes and mind being elsewhere to the degree that what little training I gave you was disintegrated from The Word and springing out of a distracted mind (therefore impatient, rude and missing the integral gift of BEING WITH you), devastated that I did not hold the things in my hands that I wished I did. If my eyes and mind are applied to everyone else and what they are doing, the choices that could have been of a whole mind will be made without my conscious consent and I'll end up with whatever everyone else will: lack and incompleteness. I would be looking at my hands which held the equivalent of nothing for all those years, weeping because I did not make the choice to be aware of where my attention was going.
What you choose is a revelation of where your attention is. And if your attention is poor, or paid to what is of no Substance, the choices you find yourself having made will not be what you had hoped for.
I heard Hebrews 7 this morning. Deeply.
He is ABLE (full of power) to
SAVE (His name,Yehoshuah means YAH DELIVERS)
INTO (eis: union for a particular result, ONENESS--baptized into Christ, as taking on new properties because immersed and saturated INTO His nature and likeness)
[himself]
those who approach, agree, draw near (this is ATTENTION) through Him, since He always, ever LIVES to entreat and petition Abba, with His own completeness, wholeness, sincerity, ONENESS.
HE IS ABLE. TO SAVE. INTO COMPLETENESS. THROUGH ATTENTION.
It says He is CAPABLE of saving me wholly. But receiving that inheritance is optional...and so many of us opt out of receiving what is ours in Christ because our attention is paid to what is busy, visible and nominal in value.
I truly long to be a person of Substance. Amen.
The Word offered me eyes to see the Substance of this particular problem, and words to offer Thayer insight as to why he would be disappointed in the books that he himself had checked out on his library card.
It went something like this:
I remember asking you several times to go look and find books that are interesting to you in each category. What I kept seeing was you spending your attention on the children and toys about you. We stayed for enough time for you to make choices that you were happy with, but that isn't how you spent your attention. There was no lack of things that are fascinating to learn about. The problem wasn't the resources being dry.
Hold on. I want to show you why there is something to HEAR, here.
Most people are very fine with giving their attention to their phones, or making more money, or pleasure. But what might be missing is the substance they are hoping to receive. I remember being very invested in managing my Instagram account, to the defeat of effective discipleship--for myself and for you-- and being efficient and attentive in the calling He put on my life through giving me children and a husband. Abba was so merciful to show me that IT IS ALWAYS about the attention and to what it is applied...that all I have is my attention and it is only complete when it is applied to the Word Himself.
I could have stumbled through motherhood, then somehow making it to the day you and Arden are 18 & 19, and look back and only remember the moments between my eyes and mind being elsewhere to the degree that what little training I gave you was disintegrated from The Word and springing out of a distracted mind (therefore impatient, rude and missing the integral gift of BEING WITH you), devastated that I did not hold the things in my hands that I wished I did. If my eyes and mind are applied to everyone else and what they are doing, the choices that could have been of a whole mind will be made without my conscious consent and I'll end up with whatever everyone else will: lack and incompleteness. I would be looking at my hands which held the equivalent of nothing for all those years, weeping because I did not make the choice to be aware of where my attention was going.
What you choose is a revelation of where your attention is. And if your attention is poor, or paid to what is of no Substance, the choices you find yourself having made will not be what you had hoped for.
I heard Hebrews 7 this morning. Deeply.
He is ABLE (full of power) to
SAVE (His name,Yehoshuah means YAH DELIVERS)
INTO (eis: union for a particular result, ONENESS--baptized into Christ, as taking on new properties because immersed and saturated INTO His nature and likeness)
[himself]
those who approach, agree, draw near (this is ATTENTION) through Him, since He always, ever LIVES to entreat and petition Abba, with His own completeness, wholeness, sincerity, ONENESS.
HE IS ABLE. TO SAVE. INTO COMPLETENESS. THROUGH ATTENTION.
It says He is CAPABLE of saving me wholly. But receiving that inheritance is optional...and so many of us opt out of receiving what is ours in Christ because our attention is paid to what is busy, visible and nominal in value.
I truly long to be a person of Substance. Amen.
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