Quotes Archive, 2024
"Learning the voice of the Lord, i.e. personal revelation, is an art, not an exact science. But even artists get really good at their art the more familiar they become with the brushes, the canvas, different types of paint, and the Artist inside. A few thoughts from a recent conversation:
One, the Lord does not always speak with fireworks, though He occasionally does at strategic moments for strategic reasons. If you are always looking for revelatory fireworks you are looking for excitement, not God's voice. You will be disappointed, at best, misled, at worst. Ponder 1Kings 19:11-13.
Two, the Lord speaks most predictably through slow-drip revelations. That means custom-fitted illuminations in Bible study, recurring impressions during/after prayer, recurring situations that jam our wrong programming and impact our heart, recurring opportunities and fruitfulness, recurring closed doors and lack of fruitfulness, timely conversations, providential relationships, etc.
Three, the Lord speaks most through slow-drip revelations because He prioritizes forming before informing. The subtle, gradual nature of this revelatory method facilitates intimacy with Him and personal development far, far better than dazzling, short-lived fireworks.
Four, God speaks on a gradient. He speaks to a person proportionate to their true spiritual maturity level—not how long we've been born-again, not how long we've been in church, not how long we've been listening to Christian music, not how long we've been "Christianizing" our environment. Jesus detailed the revelatory gradient in Mark 4:23-25. If you do not perceive, cooperate with, and assimilate what He is saying to you at your current level, you will not move up the revelatory gradient. A irritating spiritual glass ceiling will remain over your prayer life and revelatory awareness. If you do perceive, cooperate with, and assimilate what He is saying to you at your current level, you will gradually experience His voice more frequently, more clearly, and over a wider variety of subjects. He will reveal what you need to know at your level, so be humble and honest if you are not as advanced in the Spirit as you thought." (2/22)
"The bread was handed to Judas (John 13:26), yet he dipped his own hand into Jesus' bowl (Matthew 26:23). You cannot control the hand that has been given to you, but you can decide where you dip your hand." (1/15)
"A theory of everything, in the scientific sense, refers to a singular, ultimate, all-encompassing equation or formula that explains the universe and all its disparate parts. Such a formula has not been found yet and possibly never will, at least in the foreseeable future.
In a similar way, many people, in their anxious desperation to label and categorize what they do not understand, create "theories of everything" about the individuals around them. These interpersonal blanket statements and oversimplified formulas ignore the complexity and nuance of most individuals and most social situations. Rather than embracing the intricate process of patiently learning the labyrinth that is a person (or a social situation), the intellectual and moral neanderthal kneejerks to a theory of everything.
A person who often uses interpersonal theories of everything does so for distinct reasons; their heat signature is consistent and predictable. They are trying to create a personal world where their excuses and unhealed inner pain can live. This means creating a splitscreen of life that is aggressively all-or-nothing, us-versus-them, angel or villain, useful or disposable. This means creating an information ecosystem around themselves (and those in relationship with them) that contains its own logic and intrasubjectivity, even if that logic is not logical at all by even the most basic requirements of common sense.
The providential irony of the reductionist is that a bigger, badder reductionist will always come along and reduce them in ways they have always feared. Jesus said, with the measure you use it will be measured to you, and even more so." (12/19/23)