Made for spirituality, we wallow in introspection. Made for joy, we settle for pleasure. Made for justice, we clamor for vengeance. Made for relationship, we insist on our own way. Made for beauty, we are satisfied with sentiment. But new creation has already begun. The sun has begun to rise. Christians are called to leave behind, in the tomb of Jesus Christ, all that belongs to the brokenness and incompleteness of the present world … That, quite simply, is what it means to be Christian: to follow Jesus Christ into the new world, God’s new world, which he has thrown open before us. – N.T. Wright
In order to attain what we desire most, we mistakenly believe that we must move forward, acquire more, learn much, guard relentlessly, achieve fame, win awards, and stockpile power.
And yet, our true desires are never met by our effort, ingenuity, or winsome charisma. Our true desires – the ones that emanate from the ground of our being and refuse to quiet their call until we fulfill them – are found through simple, quiet, effortless means.
Finding fulfillment in this life does not come by learning, but by unlearning. It does not come by grasping, but by releasing. Not by pursuing, but by surrendering to being pursued. Not by leading, but by following. And not by demanding, but by accepting.
The gateway to paradise – the kingdom of heaven – exists on this side of the grave. It stands open for all who would enter.
Finding that gate….is the focus of today’s episode.
Source Scripture
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Extras
Beyond the surface affirmations that come through our achievements and social contacts, we long to be seen and celebrated for that which is deeply good and worthwhile in us, and we long for a love that is strong enough to contain our frailty and sinfulness. Something in us knows such love is a transforming power. Ruth Haley Barton
When Adam and Eve hid from God amidst the trees of the Garden of Eden, clad with fig leaves sewn by trembling fingers, they for the first time in their lives feared being in the presence of God. Before the fall of paradise, they were unashamed to be fully seen and known. But now, they lived with a new reality: to be fully known came coupled with the horrifying dread of rejection.
And as they shuddered in the shadows, God called to them. He came to them. And though their shame was as much their own making as their fig leaf coverings, God gently took away both – covering them with love and the skins of of the first creature to ever die.
God’s love enveloped both their worth and their failure, held in the tension between the curses of Paradise Lost and the promise of paradise regained through a future descendant of Eve.
We live in that fallen state – it infects us today. We long equally to be fully known and fully loved, yet we believe the former inherently negates the latter. This leaves us in a terrible state, for we see the love really want on one horizon and who we really are on the other. Trapped in desperation of a world of our own making, we hopelessly run toward one or the other. To run toward love, we believe, we must cloak and costume our true selves, leading inevitably to a false version of love for a false version of ourselves.
And when we can take no more of this, we turn back toward the other horizon, back to ourselves. But, where is this place from whence we came? The landscape looks different now than when we left. We are lost. We search desperately for who we really are, but in so doing the more we discover leads us farther and farther away from the love of anyone who could ever embrace what we find.
And yet, what we do not see or grasp as we run back and forth like little flatlanders who can fathom only two dimensions, a divine voice cries out from above in love, asking the same question asked of Adam and Eve. Where are you?
God’s love seeks us. It searches us out. God is love, and He is capable of loving us fully and knowing us fully, awakening us to and rescuing us from the torturous, writhing, fallen state of forever believing we must choose between experiencing love and being seen for who we are.
Once rescued, we find paradise regained. All we ever desired returns to us.
And then – we find ourselves with one new desire – the desire to do for others what was done for us.
This is the golden rule of engagement.
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If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. C.S. Lewis
Desire is so fundamental to our nature that we often overlook its significance. Its guiding force. We are created – designed – to desire and to be satisfied.
Desire and satisfaction were part of Paradise before the fall. When God created the world and saw that it was good, he rested. When Adam and Eve worked the garden each day, they would stop in the evening and walk in the cool of the day beside the divine God of the Universe. And when they were hungry, they found satisfaction from taking the fruit of any tree in the garden.
Except one, of course.
The serpent injected venom into Eve’s desires and bent them toward the forbidden. Forget God and what He said, the serpent suggested, and become like him by eating from this tree.
Eve, having then entertained the idea of going against God’s guidance, looked at the fruit of the tree. The Scriptures say she saw three things that she desired: she saw that the tree was good for food, pleasing to the eye, and desirable for gaining wisdom.
And so, in an attempt to satisfy those desires, she took the forbidden fruit. And ate it. And then gave some to Adam, who was standing next to her.
Adam and Eve abandoned their natural, divine provisions that would naturally meet their desires and grasped for something outside the realm of God’s desire.
And yet, though we call this event the Fall – or Paradise Lost – what we find is God’s desire only beginning to reveal itself. God came to the garden in the cool of the day to find Adam and Eve, desiring to walk with them. He called to them when he could not find them, desiring their presence. And once they confessed their sin, He covered their shame with animal skins that he sacrificed, desiring to relieve their shame. He handed down discipline and ejected them from the garden, but left them alive and well, desiring to continue to be a part of their lives. And the rest of Scripture is the story of God’s divine pursuit – his holy desire – to win us back from doing the same thing over and over again – trying to gratify our desires with anything other than Him and His provision.
God’s desire is us. And when we loosen our grip on the forbidden fruit and take our eyes off its deceptive appearances, we find that what we really desire ourselves is God. And when God’s desires and ours converge, Paradise is regained.
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Change the prevailing mode of consciousness and you change the world. Theodore Roszak
The prevailing mode of consciousness today might be captured in the word materialism. Philosophical materialism suggests that all that matters is matter, and everything that occurs does so strictly within the material world.
Practical materialism, which flows from its philosophical wellspring, focuses on the acquisition, manipulation, and removal of material objects based on their usefulness.
A better term for this prevailing mode of consciousness that is rooted in philosophical materialism might be objective consciousness.
In layman’s terms: Where’s my stuff? I want stuff. I need stuff. But not that stuff.
Objective consciousness limits us to see, live, and act only within the physical world of stuff. Of things.
Beyond the stuff of earth, however, is a realm of awe and wonder. The spiritual world. The plane of existence where we experience love, joy, peace, gratitude, hope, and communion with the divine.
The membrane that separates these two worlds can only be permeated by shedding the entirety of the material world, including and especially the center of it all – the self.
To the self, this appears as a mythical fantasy at best or suicidal mission at worst. And so, any invitation to cross the threshold is met with dismissal or attack.
So how does anyone trapped in the prevailing consciousness of the material, objective world ever see the truth of what lies beyond?
There is one – and only one – spiritual substance that can penetrate the physical world and shine light that illuminates the path between these two world
And that substance is the focus of today’s episode.
Source Scripture
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Extras
I had been my whole life a bell and never knew it until at that moment I was lifted and struck. – Annie Dillard
Awestruck Podcast is a hero’s journey to the center of you.
Have you ever been awestruck? We were meant to live in this transformed state of attention, not just long for it or experience it rarely. It is the real. It is what makes you real. To be spellbound, captivated, filled with wonder, held in aesthetic arrest, awestruck.
It is in this state of wonder that we find our ability to find ourselves. To be real. And to accept real truth that transforms us into everything we long to be.
To lead you to that state of wonder we call AWESTRUCK, which is the doorway through which we must all walk to achieve transformation.
To lead you to seek and discover your true self – your soul. To embrace your real self and let go of the false self – the ego. To “know thyself.”
To help you grasp and receive the overwhelming, sacred love of God.
Sources
Saint Luke’s Prologue: Luke 1:1-4
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Extras
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Read the fascinating story of the scientific examination of Saint Luke’s bones in Padua.
In the book of Acts, Luke mentions 32 countries, 54 cities, and 9 Mediterranean islands. He also lists 95 people by name, 62 of which are not named elsewhere in the New Testament (Metzger, 171).
In addition, Luke is intimately familiar with the constantly-changing political conditions of the Roman world. References to Augustus, Tiberius, Claudius, Quirinius, the Herods, Felix, and Festus are recorded. In not one of these citations is there a mistake. (Source)
