Ours Words 2 January 25 2014
Last evening I watched the evening news, portions on FOX and portions on what my husband calls the "network news." And one message came through clear to me which was rather surprising. And as I got up this morning, the following understanding seemed on the forefront of my mind which is what I am here trusting Him to help me put into sentences that make some sense.
Our of our mouth come the treasures of our heart....Terry Mengle of this list and one of those I call my "mentors" put it this way in a note this morning: I have always taught that our words were the gauge of our heart. They are like a thermometer in that they display the warmth or coldness of our heart.
It displays the picture that I am seeing and I hope you will bare with me as I put the whole picture together that the Word of the Lord that He is speaking might be made known to you.
Generally Huckabee is watched on either Saturday night or Sunday night depending on our schedules. So I had watched what he had said about the Democratic Party's take on women. So seeing it repeatedly on the news last night and hearing how other people responded to it, brought some questions to my mind which seemed to have answers this morning as I rose up out of bed.
The thing that I was beginning to understand was that people hear more than our words. People often only hear the emotion which accompanies our words. WOW...no startling statement but yet it is beginning to give me insight into so many situations that I have been a part of one way or another. People didn't hear WHO Huckabee was talking about. They only heard the emotion that the words carried regarding the subject he spoke on. So in one way, his message spoke "heart to heart" not mind to mind. And what got conveyed was something completely different than Huckabee's intent.
We live in Washington State and the big news out of Washington State has to do with the Seahawks going to the Super Bowl. But beyond that, is the national attention that Cornerback Sherman got for what they called his "rant" immediately after the Seahawks win in the playoffs. By his own admission he was operating out of the "emotion" or the "energy" of the win and of his failed effort to shake Crabtree's hand at the end of the game and the resultant anger that arose (and now a $7000 plus fine for the choking action he made around his own neck). Sherman has apologized saying that he was in the height of energy/emotion from the game and all he said and did was inappropriate and took focus away from the team's win and the excellent job his fellow team members did. In Sherman's case, his words and his emotions lined up to produce a really ugly result for which he has expressed his sincere apologies.
Often we miss the emotion that is fueling our behaviors. What is the solution for this? In many ways with the natural man we are not able to really discern the inner energy which often comes as a result of past experiences many of which are hidden from our awareness due to the perceived uncomfortableness of them or the perceived inability to know how to deal with them.
I was chatting with my husband about this whole subject as it related to Huckabee and Sherman and he mentioned that his father who was a radio broadcaster among many other things used to tell how those who were going to be on the radio would get together prior to the broadcast and go over the material and make sure that there was no "ranting" other than when a rant was part of the story line someone was acting out. His father knew the significance on the radio of the emotion that could distort the intended message.
As I thought through these things this morning the following is what conclusion I came to:
1. It is most important that we stay open to the Holy Spirit and allow Him to be the discerner of our hearts (our mind, our emotions and our will). It is not enough to move forth on something we "know to be God's will"; and it is not enough to move forth on something because "God told me, I am just obeying him." We are to "be known of God." ouch! Most of us long to "know the Lord" to "know God." Yet if we look into the scriptures, those that found closed doors to fellowship with God, heaven or whatever context you want to put it, who were found being sent to the place of gnashing of teeth and darkness, were not those that didn't "know God" but ones that God didn't "know." To be known of God is to be received of God. To be open before the Father is to allow His light to shine down into the innermost parts of our being, which is where HE wants to inhabit. I am thankful that God hangs around with us. I am thankful He overshadows me and shields me. I am so thankful for His provision for me. But, he is doing this for many who are wicked and evil also!! What the big difference is, He wants to come and dwell in me, not just with me! He wants me to welcome his thoughts, his emotions and his decisions/behaviors and actions in my will.
2. It is most important that we stay open to our fellow human beings. Like the radio broadcaster who said that they would get together before a program and go over the script to make sure that "it sounded" the right way, it is important that we stay in relationship with those who can speak into our lives and help us discern between what scripture calls soul and spirit. The emotion that our words carry may even be more significant than the words. As in the case of Huckabee, he is facing the reality that the emotion that he poured into his words was picked up by the subject of his comments (women) rather than the people to whom it was directed, the Democratic Party. One of the women who brought this out in relationship to Huckabee and I get all the names of all those blondes on FOX News mixed up so I can't recall her name, was right on. She told him that "his rant" caused his message to be totally misunderstood.
Emotion isn't bad nor is it good. It is the energy that is carried through our words out of our life experiences. It can come out of our own natural desires to protect ourselves, promote ourselves and our message, and many other natural human tendencies that flow from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Or it can flow out of the very "mind of Christ" in and through the heart of the Father and His love as we choose Christ. In either case, emotions come out of the way we "think" about things, not necessarily the subject of our thoughts but the nature of the thoughts and the emotions they stir up. And those emotions are energizers both of our own behaviors and things that stir up thoughts in others that then energize them. Mob behavior is based on this principle that if a person speaks and acts in such a way that they can stir up thoughts in another person that they aren't conscious of, you can direct their emotions and behaviors in a given direction. The media in 2014 is well aware of this and is in most cases the basis of most news broadcasts and especially advertising.
As I conclude then, I want to reiterate that what we yield our wills to will determine what we think, what we feel and ultimately what behaviors we have. And it is easy to see that this could be and is, apart from some intervention in our lives, a vicious circle. How do I get out of the trap that when I want to do what is life giving, there is a force in me that continues the cycle of repetition of what has gone on in my being since birth?
The only way to get out of the cycle is to invite the power of Holy Spirit into our lives and He who is Spirit will break the cycle by giving us the option of seeing Him, his thoughts, his feelings and his will in some measure.
To the degree we are willing to receive His Spirit when he "breaks into our lives" is the measure to which we will be changed and freed from the vicious cycle of our own thinking, feelings and choices. Who can save us, Paul in Romans asks? The anointing that is Christ Jesus...He is my saviour and He is come TO ALL FLESH by the Spirit yet in this hour. Why me? Why you? Because he made us for fellowship, he made us to "hang around with him, the creator of the universe for all eternity....why? Because He made us from and like himself to share the wonders of all the universe with him and he's made a way for us out of the independence of our own mind will and emotions through the death and resurrection of his own Son, allowing Holy Spirit to be poured out upon ALL FLESH, so we could be reconciled. You and me...all those that don't like me, don't like God, who do things I think are "wrong"....as well as those who do things "right"...ALL have been reconciled, to share the thoughts, the emotions and behav
Our of our mouth come the treasures of our heart....Terry Mengle of this list and one of those I call my "mentors" put it this way in a note this morning: I have always taught that our words were the gauge of our heart. They are like a thermometer in that they display the warmth or coldness of our heart.
It displays the picture that I am seeing and I hope you will bare with me as I put the whole picture together that the Word of the Lord that He is speaking might be made known to you.
Generally Huckabee is watched on either Saturday night or Sunday night depending on our schedules. So I had watched what he had said about the Democratic Party's take on women. So seeing it repeatedly on the news last night and hearing how other people responded to it, brought some questions to my mind which seemed to have answers this morning as I rose up out of bed.
The thing that I was beginning to understand was that people hear more than our words. People often only hear the emotion which accompanies our words. WOW...no startling statement but yet it is beginning to give me insight into so many situations that I have been a part of one way or another. People didn't hear WHO Huckabee was talking about. They only heard the emotion that the words carried regarding the subject he spoke on. So in one way, his message spoke "heart to heart" not mind to mind. And what got conveyed was something completely different than Huckabee's intent.
We live in Washington State and the big news out of Washington State has to do with the Seahawks going to the Super Bowl. But beyond that, is the national attention that Cornerback Sherman got for what they called his "rant" immediately after the Seahawks win in the playoffs. By his own admission he was operating out of the "emotion" or the "energy" of the win and of his failed effort to shake Crabtree's hand at the end of the game and the resultant anger that arose (and now a $7000 plus fine for the choking action he made around his own neck). Sherman has apologized saying that he was in the height of energy/emotion from the game and all he said and did was inappropriate and took focus away from the team's win and the excellent job his fellow team members did. In Sherman's case, his words and his emotions lined up to produce a really ugly result for which he has expressed his sincere apologies.
Often we miss the emotion that is fueling our behaviors. What is the solution for this? In many ways with the natural man we are not able to really discern the inner energy which often comes as a result of past experiences many of which are hidden from our awareness due to the perceived uncomfortableness of them or the perceived inability to know how to deal with them.
I was chatting with my husband about this whole subject as it related to Huckabee and Sherman and he mentioned that his father who was a radio broadcaster among many other things used to tell how those who were going to be on the radio would get together prior to the broadcast and go over the material and make sure that there was no "ranting" other than when a rant was part of the story line someone was acting out. His father knew the significance on the radio of the emotion that could distort the intended message.
As I thought through these things this morning the following is what conclusion I came to:
1. It is most important that we stay open to the Holy Spirit and allow Him to be the discerner of our hearts (our mind, our emotions and our will). It is not enough to move forth on something we "know to be God's will"; and it is not enough to move forth on something because "God told me, I am just obeying him." We are to "known of God." ouch! Most of us long to "know the Lord" to "know God." Yet if we look into the scriptures, those that found closed doors to fellowship with God, heaven or whatever context you want to put it, who were found being sent to the place of gnashing of teeth and darkness, we not those that didn't "know God" but ones that God didn't "know." To be known of God is to be received of God. To be open before the Father is to allow His light to shine down into the innermost parts of our being, which is where HE wants to inhabit. I am thankful that God hangs around with us. I am thankful He overshadows me and shields me. I am so thankful for His provision for me. But, he is doing this for many who are wicked and evil also!! What the big difference is, He wants to come and dwell in me, not just with me! He wants me to welcome his thoughts, his emotions and his decisions/behaviors and actions in my will.
2. It is most important that we stay open to our fellow human beings. Like the radio broadcaster who said that they would get together before a program and go over the script to make sure that "it sounded" the right way, it is important that we stay in relationship with those who can speak into our lives and help us discern between what scripture calls soul and spirit. The emotion that our words carry may even be more significant than the words. As in the case of Huckabee, he is facing the reality that the emotion that he poured into his words was picked up by the subject of his comments (women) rather than the people to whom it was directed, the Democratic Party. One of the women who brought this out in relationship to Huckabee and I get all the names of all those blondes on FOX News mixed up so I can't recall her name, was right on. She told him that "his rant" caused his message to be totally misunderstood.
Emotion isn't bad nor is it good. It is the energy that is carried through our words out of our life experiences. It can come out of our own natural desires to protect ourselves, promote ourselves and our message, and many other natural human tendencies that flow from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Or it can flow out of the very "mind of Christ" in and through the heart of the Father and His love as we choose Christ. In either case, emotions come out of the way we "think" about things, not necessarily the subject of our thoughts but the nature of the thoughts and the emotions they stir up. And those emotions are energizers both of our own behaviors and things that stir up thoughts in others that then energize them. Mob behavior is based on this principle that if a person speaks and acts in such a way that they can stir up thoughts in another person that they aren't conscious of, you can direct their emotions and behaviors in a given direction. The media in 2014 is well aware of this and is in most cases the basis of most news broadcasts and especially advertising.
As I conclude then, I want to reiterate that what we yield our wills to will determine what we think, what we feel and ultimately what behaviors we have. And it is easy to see that this could be and is, apart from some intervention in our lives, a vicious circle. How do I get out of the trap that when I want to do what is life giving, there is a force in me that continues the cycle of repetition of what has gone on in my being since birth?
The only way to get out of the cycle is to invite the power of Holy Spirit into our lives and He who is Spirit will break the cycle by giving us the option of seeing Him, his thoughts, his feelings and his will in some measure.
To the degree we are willing to receive His Spirit when he "breaks into our lives" is the measure to which we will be changed and freed from the vicious cycle of our own thinking, feelings and choices. Who can save us, Paul in Romans asks? The anointing that is Christ Jesus...He is my saviour and He is come TO ALL FLESH by the Spirit yet in this hour. Why me? Why you? Because he made us for fellowship, he made us to "hang around with him, the creator of the universe for all eternity....why? Because He made us from and like himself to share the wonders of all the universe with him and he's made a way for us out of the independence of our own mind will and emotions through the death and resurrection of his own Son, allowing Holy Spirit to be poured out upon ALL FLESH, so we could be reconciled. You and me...all those that don't like me, don't like God, who do things I think are "wrong"....as well as those who do things "right"...ALL have been reconciled, to share the thoughts, the emotions and behaviors of God himself. WOW...what great news.
