8.3 Our Connection with All Else

In this lesson, I want to talk about me, being human, inside all the fabric of my human soul. The definition of the human must always be personal. Just as I never imagine connecting with God any other way than through the Lord Jesus Christ inside my heart, so I never imagine connecting with anything of my human soul except through that same Jesus.

We could say it this way, “Just as no one comes to the Father except through Me, so no one comes to himself except through Me.” That is what Jesus meant in trading our false story of self for our true self inside of Him. I never consider anything I find in my humanity except through Jesus In-Between that human anything and me.

The Proving of Christ. I do not understand why God has used such patterns in my life, but this March, 2021, marks the finish of the third twelve-year pattern in the proving of Christ inside of me. For thirty-six years, it has been the same issue of my attitude of heart towards God’s people, from April of 1985 to March of 1997 to March of 2009 to March of 2021. In April of 1985, God AGREED with me in all the agony of my human soul. Yet God always gives first what He expects in return. And thus in March of 2021, I agreed with God to be all the agony of His Heart for His people’s sake.

At the completion of that process, for indeed, it began at the end of December, three months earlier, I find myself knowing GOOD and TRUE as the bottom and anchor of my soul.

The Bottom of My Soul. This is not God in my spirit, nor is it God in my physic. This is God in my soul, entirely and literally through the Lord Jesus. And this role of Jesus at the bottom of my soul, is Fellowship.

Whoever might drink out of the water that I will give him, will never thirst in this age, but the water that I will give him will become inside of him a spring of water bubbling up into age-unfolding life (John 4:14). That opening, here inside of me, at the bottom of my soul, is Fellowship, and through it, God my Father bubbles up into all the knowing of my human soul. That anchor, then, is what makes me human, that is, it causes every thought to be connected to REAL from its start.

Bouncing All Around. Always before, the thoughts of my mind and the feelings of my emotions just seemed to bounce around all over the place just as fast as they could go. And my brain demands speed. I worked for a bit for a lady whose IQ was higher than mine. Yet I could do the same work in half the time she did, simply because my brain does not slow down. Yet she was as the tortoise, and produced brilliance hour after hour, whereas I was the hare, unable to proceed except in spastic spurts of work. And I have shown, in my autobiography, the graphic immediacy of all the emotional pain of my life, for my emotions match my brain in their intensity.

No Anchor at All. For years, all of my thoughts and emotions were just all over the place. I found some semblance of peace by placing myself into a fantasy world of daydreaming. The problem was that in the depths of my soul I perceived only a hole, an emptiness, a lack. And that lack was amplified by the serpent’s gospel preached into me, “Daniel, your heart is deceitful and wicked. Daniel, your will is always opposed to God’s will. Daniel, ‘die’ to your flesh.” Yet Jesus lived as grace inside my heart, and I was aware of that, but not enough to anchor my human-ness.

Inside the proving of Christ, however, for twelve years, from March of 2009 to March of 2021, I did something RADICAL towards all the wayward threads of my human soul.

Between Me and Myself. For twelve years of the proving of Christ, I placed Jesus IN-BETWEEN me and every part of myself. “Jesus, this is You, sharing Yourself with Me. Jesus, this is You, causing my Father to be part of my life, sharing this awfulness with me as His own. Jesus, this is You, turning with me all my agony into goodness for others.”

I have not danced into the knowledge of God; I have stumbled here, just like Much Afraid in Hind’s Feet on High Places, bruised and hurting every step of the way. Yet I have also learned this along the way, that all things of God are seasons in my life, and that every season comes to its COMPLETION. My soul now knows its completion.

Jesus as Fellowship. A human soul is very human, as God made us, up and down, in and out, strong and weak, wise and foolish. This is normal. But this Fellowship at the bottom of my soul, that is Jesus, this Fellowship through which I am formed by every Word that God speaks flowing into me, anchors all the bouncing thoughts, desires, and emotions of my normal humanity.

This thought might bounce all over the place, but it comes out from God through Jesus as Fellowship. This desire might overwhelm me for a moment, but it comes out from God through Jesus as Fellowship. This emotion might trip me up, but it comes out from God through Jesus as Fellowship.

Lostness versus Wholeness. As I know everything of my human soul, my self-consciousness, anchored inside of Jesus as the Mercy Seat of God, the throne of heaven, then, for the first time in my life, I look inside and find myself to be a human, the image and likeness of God.

Picture all the parts of the soul, thoughts, desires, and emotions, as short pieces of rope, loose and unanchored, bouncing around without any connection at all. This is the meaning of lostness. Then picture all those short pieces of rope, still waving around all over the place, but each of them rooted into Fellowship, into God arising inside of me through Jesus, rooted and grounded inside of Love. You are seeing how I now know myself. 

His Mighty Ability. And the best part of all of this is that I don’t have to make any part of it happen. I get to remain human, as I am, the comfortable and familiar me, the me I have always known. It is Jesus who, by His mighty ABILITY, causes me to be real.

Yet at the same time, this same Jesus connects all the waving threads of my human soul utterly with Father’s Heart, with the Passion greater than the universe, now moving through me towards His Beloved Church. You see, it’s a simple equation. Jesus cannot connect me to the circumstances coming my way or to my stuff, or to other people, or to anything else, unless He has first become the All-Connection of me with me inside of God.

Anchored Into Good. Having crafted through Himself the full cleansing away of all falling short (Hebrews 1:3). Or we could say it this way. “Having crafted through Himself the full connection of all the parts of my human soul with God my Father and with myself.”

Then, suddenly, in the seasons of my life, I find myself in an incredibly unique place. We are selling our house, but we do not yet have anywhere to move. And we have taken most of our stuff, and will soon take the rest, and placed it ahead of us in our move, now far away from us. And here, all alone inside of God, I find myself no longer wrestling with God, but anchored absolutely into GOOD.

Trust in Good. You see, we’ve wanted to sell our house for some time, now, but if even just six months ago, I had found myself in the same unique moment in which I am right now, all the ropes of my human soul, my thoughts, desires, and emotions, would have been so unloosed that they would have hammered me to pieces. Yet, for the first time in my life, that unanchored sense lasted only for a moment, just long enough for me to remember what I used to be, and then, strong and sure, out from the depths of what I am as a human, came the voice, the Lord Jesus now as me, saying, “I trust utterly in Good; I trust utterly in True.”

Jesus as GOOD-ness connects me utterly with tomorrow coming my way. Jesus as TRUE-ness connects me utterly with all our stuff kept safe.

In-Between Me and Everything Else. You see, I’ve never known this before; I’ve never been this way. – ANCHORED at the bottom of my soul to GOOD and TRUE Fellowship.

And what is the proving of Christ in me that has caused this mighty transformation in my knowing? It is the confession of my mouth that God is my covering for the sake of His people. – “Here am I, Father, I and all my brothers and sisters with me. You have given me LIFE, but I will not have it except they also receive LIFE with me.” Then, here is what I find. As Jesus is now the ANCHOR of all the cords of my soul, so it is a simple and easy thing for me to see Him In-Between me and everything else.

Our Connection Together. I connect with you, dear reader, through this same Jesus, even as  you connect with me through Him as well. And our connection together is pure and holy and true, never to be tarnished or disrupted no matter how silly we might be.

I find myself like Kate Winslet at the bow of the Titanic, with arms outstretched, receiving all my tomorrows coming my way through the Lord Jesus Christ as goodness, no matter what the outward experiences might look like. I am not afraid of losing anything, for all that I have belongs to those who will gather together with me in Christ Community, and I connect with all my stuff only through Jesus.

Jesus – millions of volumes of God-Word pouring into me.

The Doing of Jesus. Through this same Jesus, then, I connect with all the physical world around me, and with all who pass by me. I see them through Jesus; I know them through Jesus. And that pure God-Oil, coming out from God-at-my-back, touches each one and each thing as little acts of kindness and gentle words of encouragement, the mighty doings of God. This also is the doing of Jesus.

Wholeness, Salvation, the Kingdom of God set forth, is Jesus as that All-Connection, In-Between everything and everything as Living Spirit Word, as the Lamb Slain, as the Mediation, as the lubricating and enabling Oil, as the Energeia of our lives and togetherness, as the Completion of the Church.

The Foundation for Symmorphy. In the next chapter, we will make our first attempt at defining “human.” For that purpose, let’s sum up what this chapter, Jesus “Our All-Connection” teaches us about what a human is in completion. A human is a being who knows everything and everyone, including themselves, through the Lord Jesus Christ, in every aspect of Being that Jesus is, and who connects with everything and everyone, including all of God, through that same Jesus.

We have yet to fully include Symmorphy, sharing the same form with Jesus as the revelation of the Father, into this study, yet everything thus far, and especially in this chapter, is the essential essence for where God wants to place the full meaning of our human identity.