5.3 The Seasons of Our Lives

All that I am is written in Your book, my days [my unfolding] fashioned for me, before I am in them {before my days exist in time and appearance}. How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God!

Writing my life story inside the face and presence of God has been the most traumatic thing I have ever done. Everything in life has been confusing and hurtful to me; I have known so much pain. When Jeremiah, the man in the Bible who wept more tears than I, says that God’s thoughts concerning me are as a Cord of hope and expectation stretching into all completion each step of the way, I am able, with hesitant and shaking hands, to reach out and take that Cord as my certain guide.

A Cord of Hope. And I said, “My strength and my hope have perished from the Lord.” Remember my affliction and roaming, the wormwood and the gall. My soul still remembers and sinks within me. This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope. Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “Therefore I hope in Him!” (Lamentations 3).

You see, Jeremiah did the same thing I do, in all of his tears he reached out his hand and took hold of God’s thoughts concerning him and concerning the unfolding of the days of his life as a Cord of hope guiding him into every new day. Yet this very act is the action of turning around upon the Mercy Seat inside of God.

Father with Me. And so we KNOW the unfolding of our days as the revelation of God, Father with us, expressing Himself through our every step in tender regard for all He has created.

When you enter into the Holiest, into the knowledge of God, the most important thing you can do is to say, “Christ is my life; I have no other life,” until you KNOW that it is true. But when you know that Christ is true, then you turn around. And in turning around upon the Mercy Seat of God, the throne of heaven, the most important thing for you to say, concerning every ongoing circumstance of your life, is, “This is Father with me FOR THE SAKE OF OTHERS!” And you say it until it is the ONLY way you think.

Acceptance to Thanksgiving. Now you are able to KNOW the unfolding of your days and every step into the next circumstance coming your way as God’s thoughts concerning you, and even more, God’s thoughts concerning Himself as you, stepping through you into your world.

Accepting the Blood, the Cross, and the Resurrection (Christ is my life; I have no other life) is the only door into the knowledge of Jesus Sent into you. But giving thanks inside of and for the sake of all is the only door into the knowledge of the Father, the only True God. And we know God our Father only as we see Him alone sharing our every circumstance with us and stepping with us through that circumstance and into our world.

Well-Known Thoughts. We speak good grace and thanks to God, for God always leads us, and God always leads us in the triumphal procession inside of Christ, in the full celebration of all victory as Jesus shares His glory with us. The aroma of His knowledge is made visible through us in every place. Everywhere we go, people see the Father and rejoice in the knowledge of God. For of Christ we are a fragrance to God even as we are life to many (2 Corinthians 2:14-15 – expanded).

But here’s the thing. God does not lead us through the “unknown.” God has never led us through the “unknown.” Every moment and circumstance of our lives has always been God leading us through His WELL-KNOWN, His GOOD and His TRUE thoughts concerning the unfolding of our days.

Prepare a Path. Let me make a strong statement and then I will explain it. – How we know our past is how we know our future. And both revolve around how we know this present moment.

My life story, Prepare a Path, is nearly six hundred pages in length, the size of a large college textbook. In it I have given an honest account of my life as I understood things through each of my days and through all my interactions with others. Through the decade of the 1990’s, I was deeply troubled over “what was wrong with me,” and I searched through my history, trying to find the “darkness” that caused my inability to walk in the knowledge of God. I imagined that my life was filled with curses that prevented me from being “like Jesus.”

God Is Good, All the Time. Yet here is the most hilarious thing. As I look back now, I see how good and true those “dark” days were, for they brought me to that cold and hopeless February of 1998 when I had no hope at all, when I heard my Father say, “Give My people hope.”

When I take my life story in hand, even to pressing the book against my chest, and say, “God is GOOD, all the time, in every moment and circumstance of my life. All of His ways concerning me are perfect. He has never led me wrong; He has never not led me.” When I say that, in full awareness of every moment of confusion and pain, then I KNOW God’s future for me, that all things coming my way every moment are the revelation of God through me for the sake of others.

Engage Directly with God. Please understand that concerning this topic, knowing God’s knowing of you, I dare never give you a bunch of ideas, even in a graduate-level study. All I dare to do is take you by the hand and lead you through thanksgiving into Father with you for the sake of others. In fact this is the lab part of this course and all chapters of Symmorphy – you yourself MUST engage directly with God.

Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground (Exodus 3:5). And here in this place of pure Devotion, face to Face with the All-Carrying One, let’s consider that most mundane of topics, the flow of every moment of the circumstances of your life.

The Arm of Our Beloved. Now, the image of a guide rope stretching into our futures inside of God, a rope upon which we rest our hands is very powerful, yet it is impersonal. Instead of that image, we prefer Solomon’s picture of the bride walking out of what has been a wilderness to her leaning upon the arm of her Beloved. That cord of expectation leading us into the next day already completed inside of God is the arm of the Lord Jesus upon which we lean.

But then think about the meaning of what David says, “My days are fashioned for me BEFORE I am in them.” Tomorrow is part of God before we ever step into it.

Defining “Time.” Let’s define time. Time is that next step, that next part of God into which the All-Carrying One is carrying me. Or – time is that next moment of God coming upon me.  Both directions of movement are true, but the second is where I am right now, for I am hearing and holding to Moses’ words, “Stand still and see the Salvation of God.” – “Stand still and see that next unfolding of you inside of God and God inside of you now coming upon you.”

Now, I must confess that I have never thought this way before nor lived this way. More than that, my task is to show you the outline of the Door and the Path in front of you; God’s task is to show You Himself as you walk in His unfolding.

Our Stance Towards Circumstances. How have I lived? I have lived in a combative mode against things coming my way I don’t like, a combative mode that has slowly over years turned into a defensive mode, curled up inside, resistant against the next great disappointment heading my way. Of course, in my early years, when I was young and ambitious and not very “wise,” I saw most every step as the next great adventure. I learned, however, that adventures turned into exploding mine fields more often than not. But I am a sucker for adventure and so, even now, I continue in great expectation of God. And this is Joel Osteen’s teaching, Sunday after Sunday – God’s next step for you is favor and completion with no shadow of evil in it.

The Next Parts of God. This afternoon – tonight – tomorrow, these are the next parts of God, your days inside of Him before you are in them, coming your way. Both the combative and defensive modes, as well as the interpretation of all the unexpected explosions blowing up in one’s face, all these are the set of the human AGAINST God. One of the prophets said, “In acceptance lieth peace.” And we sang that in the move, “In acceptance, in acceptance, lieth peace.” That line spoke so deeply to me and I tried, time and again, I tried to live in it and failed every time.

If there is any accusation against God, that He knows evil, that He does evil, that He lets you down, you will never know God.

The Doorway. This is age-unfolding life, the unfolding of your next DAY that is part of God coming upon you, to KNOW the only TRUE God, the Father.

All our lives we have accused God of falseness and betrayal, of allowing circumstances that we don’t like and people doing things to us that hurt us deeply. Here is the Doorway into the Knowledge of God – the removal of all thought that God knows evil or does evil or requires evil. And this is why the first Seed of His Knowledge that God planted inside of me when I was just fifteen years old was – Give thanks in and for all things. And this is why the proving of Christ in me over decades was to justify God and find Him true.

The Path. Here is the unveiling of Jesus Christ – the removal of false seeing from our eyeballs. When Jesus allowed the Romans to push Him stumbling towards the cross, He was NOT submitting to evil. In complete contrast, Jesus’ every step was inside the goodness and favor of God upon Him. Jesus did not live for Himself, but for you and me, and every step into the next unfolding of God in His life was for the greatest prize of all, His Church married to Him.

Go back to that picture of Jesus under a cross He could not carry and see a Man utterly inside of the goodness and trueness of God All-Carrying. This same Man is our Arm guiding us into the same expectation of God.

The Path of Life. I have set the Lord always before me; because He is at my right hand I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoices; my flesh also will rest in hope. For You will not leave my soul in Sheol, nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption. You will show me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore (Psalm 16:8-11).

Look again at that man under that cross, you are seeing a man filled with fullness of joy. And notice how everything in these verses dovetails exactly with seeing our next step as already part of God before it comes our way. The path of life – my tomorrow, coming out from Good and True into my present sharing of life with God.

For the Sake of Others. Nothing I have ever taught you is more important than bringing you to that way of living where you say, towards every ongoing circumstance, “This is You, Father, sharing my life with me, sharing Your life with me, and You and I together turn our experiences, good or not-so good, fun or boring, leaping or stumbling, into all goodness FOR THE SAKE OF OTHERS, for Your precious people, by the confidence of Oour faith.”

Your every next moment is God giving of Himself, His own life, to you to share with you, that God and you together might be a strength and a hope, a wide open doorway into joy for others. This is the path of life, and we have always been in it. But when we know that our next moment is God sharing His life with us, we are anointed with the oil of ecstatic delight, just like Jesus.

The Seasons of Your Days. I had thought, when I penciled in this lesson, that I would wax eloquent about the seasons of your life forever to be found inside of God. And all of that is TRUE and GOOD and a perfect choice of topic.

Except – your next day inside of God, part of God, now coming upon you, is none of my business, but precious and private, something only you share with your Father and He with you. My job is to show you that path, and its entrance. And having done what my Father has appointed to me, I step back into the shadows, knowing that the Jesus upon whose arm carrying your hand I have shed some light is the One who takes you into the seasons of your Days, this mighty flow of God always coming upon you.