One of the things that can lead us to partial blindness has to do with those deceptive assumptions commonly called ‘preconceived ideas’. For instance, when the Messiah came to visit his people they could not recognize Him because their mind had been programmed by the religious leaders of their day, and programmed in such a way that reality was nearly impossible to perceive. Unfortunately, what happened still happens and there we go, hoping to experience—at least at times —some spiritual chimeras while sleeping on the pillow of evangelical illusions.
The chasm
When God says: “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways” (Isaiah 55:8), He reminds us that we are often detached from what He considers beneficial and proper, or from what He regards normal, necessary, and important, or worse, detached from reality as He sees it, namely, from truth itself.
The existing chasm is expressed as follows: For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8). Granted the blood of the everlasting covenant has narrowed the gulf, the remains of a worldly mind recurrently betray us, steering us away from God’s ways and thoughts.
Evidently, this disparity creates variations between God’s behavior and ours. I am not referring here to moral performances but rather to such constituents as anticipations, expectations, apprehensions, and so on. Surely, no one can deny that these variations are manifest among us. They are not only at the reach of the observer, but also blooming and thriving in the fertile ground of evangelical misconceptions.
One of the variations has to do with our sense of prediction in relation to divine blessings. We often expect to receive them from popular founts, only to find out that these “blessings” evaporate as ether does in the wind. And although we do experience some meaningful blessings, our shortsightedness keeps many of them away, among which some of the most valuable ones.
Where do we seek blessings?
If we go in accordance with what is being observed, it seems many of us believe blessings are to be found in extraordinary meetings; for when a special preacher is invited—supposedly full of faith and power—thousands of evangelicals flock to hear him as if heaven will surely touch the earth. What we fail to realize is that when two or three are gathered together in His name, Jesus is in the midst of us. But this alone seems to raise little expectation, at least, as far as blessings are concerned. We need a popular figure as Israel needed a king.
Others believe heavenly blessings flow from prosperity, or perhaps from good music, or conceivably from popularity or even earthly glory. These are some of the impressions a person gets when he observes the mainstream of evangelicals.
Then we have those who know better and seek blessings at the light of Psalm one.
Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night” (Psalm 1:1,2).
This approach, which has proven to be highly beneficial, grants always positive results. Actually, without it, little can be obtained. Even if a person travels around the world to meet the anointed preachers of the day, if he has not made these basic practices his, he is doomed to collect fleeting blessings that will wither the moment he leaves the room.
Unexpected sources of blessings
Then we have what seems at first glance a curse, and yet provides a ground in which innumerable blessings burst forth. I am referring here to these mysterious soils appreciated by those who have stretched their walk beyond the human paths, and entered into the mysterious ways of God.
It is these productive lands I want to bring to your attention in the posts to come; these spheres of fertilities where the soul can ascent above the ephemeral and transient and reach lasting glory.
A counterproductive move
The tragedy resides in the fact that we often run away from these grounds of blessings unaware of the losses our escape imposes, and to make things worse, often unconscious of our very escaping. As Bella Pollen writes: “You don’t need to know what you’re escaping from to become a fugitive.”
To flee from that which can provide eternal blessings is an evil many evangelicals have unwittingly accepted as normative. And I am afraid there is little we can do about it until our mind undergoes a reformation.
A mental revolution
To read the Bible will offer little help if we approach it with worldly principles or human preconceptions. Something in our head must change. As Paul writes:
… that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness” (Eph. 4:22–24).
Without this transmutation, which of course will affect the heart and mind, we are doomed to run away from the fertile grounds I have referred hitherto; at least, if it is in our power to do so.
A few months ago I wrote two posts in which I explained the first principle of spiritual understanding—If you have not read them I invite you to do so (here is the link)—for without a clear apprehension of spiritual reality we will not appreciate the lands of fertility God will provide for us. After all, some of them appear plainly unattractive at first sight.
I leave you with a quotation from A.W. Tozer found in The Pursuit of God, for it reflects the main turn which has led us away from numberless blessings:
“There is within the human heart a tough fibrous root of fallen life whose nature is to possess, always to possess. It covets ‘things’ with a deep and fierce passion. The pronouns ‘my’ and ‘mine’ look innocent enough in print, but their constant and universal use is significant. They express the real nature of the old Adamic man better than a thousand volumes of theology could do. They are verbal symptoms of our deep disease. The roots of our hearts have grown down into things, and we dare not pull up one rootlet lest we die. Things have become necessary to us, a development never originally intended. God’s gifts now take the place of God, and the whole course of nature is upset by the monstrous substitution.”
If you think this post can help somebody else you can share it with the options presented bellow.
