Observations of The Sacred  Romance – Drawing Closer to the Heart of God (by Brent Curtis and John Eldredge) among a few friends.   We hope you’re being blessed as we process and confess and that you’ll let us know what you are thinking, too…  

See Amy Jo’s contribution from a few days ago here.

Chapter Ten: On the Road

Here is what Jeanie had to say:   Amy Jo selected quotes from these chapters and we must very nearly have underlined all the same words in the book, me here in Brighton – she in Broomfield.   You can link to her thoughts and writing about these chapters above.

Timid, I never raised my hand in school to ask questions.    And that is a whole other blog.   But in the past few years, I have realized what a disability it is not to know how to ask a good question.   It has limited me in so many ways, as I have done everything the hard way and from scratch rather than learning from other people’s wisdom and understanding.

“…what is God up to in all this?” the author asks about a hurtful situation he once faced, recounted on page 147.   And that hit me as a really well-put question, one that could serve me well as I go forward.   He says, “In fact, the process of our sanctification, our journey, rests entirely on our ability to see life from the basis of that question.”    The writer  continues to explain that our lives aren’t a random series of events, but are part of a Divine Story with meaning.

That resonated because about 3 weeks ago, God engineered an emotional “meeting” between me and a painful past memory.   I could not understand why it came up or where it came from or why I had to even be dealing with it now, but I faced it and ask God to do any further healing and continued to choose walking in forgiveness.   Then a couple of days ago, as I was repenting of some sin and of  the taking, or receiving of   insult/offense and asking God why on earth I allowed that into my heart from a few random people (the ones that make you cringe when they walk in the room), He took me directly back to the painful, past memory-the one I had chosen to forgive and felt total wholeness in and showed me how they were related.   He exposed a vulnerability I felt many years ago, and how I’d taken a martyr’s or victim’s role with abrasive people  due to  the incident in my formative years.  

There isn’t room or time to give full explanation here except to say – there have been people who are in my life from whom I have withheld true relationship and have allowed myself to play a victim to their abrasiveness, rather than to see them as God sees them and to see myself as the blessed non-victim that I am.   I  have been  hurting them.   I  have been  hurting me.   And while it was very easy to make them villains, I could’ve told you stories to get you on my side, God wants me free and when He allows these things to come up (“the nits”)  and the slightest offense brings an unequal reaction like salt in a paper cut, “hurt feelings” or not, you have to know God is in this!   I am going to be referencing that question much more in my life: What is God up to in all this?

Chapter 10 from Heather:   Wow—this is a great book! It’s sooo intense, that I will need to read it again, and possibly re-read it. It’s done sooo much for my heart, and yet, I am still feeling raw and exposed. It’s not terrifically convenient, but even as the unattractiveness of my inner self is uprooted, I am finding His peace right there walking me through it!  Thank you so much God!

“The Journey” is a very appropriate title for this chapter, because at this point you do have a choice…Are you going to begin this journey with Him, or stay stuck in your smaller story? On page 144, it says this: “Entering into the Sacred Romance begins with a decision to become a pilgrim of the heart. As Gabriel Marcel reminds us, the soul is a traveler: ‘It is of the soul and of the soul alone that we can say with supreme truth that “being” necessarily means “being on the way” (en route).’”   “We are,” he says, homo viator, which means ‘itinerant man’ or woman on pilgrimage. The choice before us now is to journey or to homestead, to live like Abraham the friend of God, or like Robinson Crusoe, the lost soul cobbling together some sort of existence with whatever he can salvage from the wreckage of the world. Crusoe was no pilgrim; he was a survivor, hunkered down for the duration. He lived in a very, very, small world where he was the lead character and all else found its focus in him. Of course, to be fair, Crusoe was stranded on an island with little hope of rescue. We have been rescued, but still the choice is ours to stay in our small stories, clutching our household gods and false lovers, or to run in search of life.”

I really love that passage. I know that my journey through this life is a pilgrimage. I know that means I cannot possibly know what lies ahead of me. I know that can be scary, (if I let it be). I hate being fearful though, so I really need to rid myself of everything that hinders my relationship with God so that I can walk in the peace that passes all understanding. I also know that I am en route. I look back on my life and say, “Thank you so much God that I am not who I was then!” In my mind’s eye I see God smiling down on me as a father would, knowing that while I have made some progress, I’m far from done!

“Is anyone in charge? Someone strong and kind who notices us? At some point we have all answered that question ‘no’ and gone on to live in a smaller story. But the answer is ‘yes’—there is someone strong and kind, who notices us. Our Story is written by God who is more than author, he is the romantic lead in our personal dramas. He created us for himself and now he is moving heaven and earth to restore us to his side. His wooing seems less wild because he seeks to free our heart from the attachments and addictions we’ve chosen, thanks to the Arrows we’ve known.” Pg 147-148.

This is what mends my raw and exposed heart. That little excerpt sums it up. As I’ve read through this chapter, God has actually begun to reveal my “attachments and addictions”.   More than one exists, and I am deeply saddened to say I’ve gone to them many, many times, before seeking Him. In trying to work through this book I have had to face so many unattractive qualities about myself, it’s weird how I am not in a corner crying over my own depravity. Oh, wait, I think I did do that at one point! All that to say, this Romance is truly what I’ve been looking for. I want this journey, and I just keep asking Him to uproot the things that are deep that keep me from Him.

The question is asked at the end of the chapter, “What is all this for?” This response puts it into perspective: “Jesus said that when a person lives merely to preserve his life, he eventually loses it altogether. Rather, he said, give your life away and discover life as it was always meant to be. ‘Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self’ (Matt. 16:25, The Message). Self-preservation, the theme of every small story is so deeply wrong because it violates the Trinity, whose members live to bring glory to the others.   The road we travel will take us into the battle to restore beauty in all things, chief among them the hearts of those we know. We grow in glory so that we might assist others in doing so; we give our glory to increase theirs. In order to fulfill the purpose of our journey, we will need a passion to increase glory; we will need love.”

Amazing. What more can be said, other than, “I am willing Lord!”

Candi is still working on her responses.   They will follow…  

Who knew this book would take us all summer?…Jeanie

     Jeanie with the grand-kids; Heather the prayer-warrior

These are the observations of The Sacred Romance – Drawing Closer to the Heart of God (by Brent Curtis and John Eldredge) among a few friends.   We’re working toward the culmination of our time in this book and already know what the next book will be.   E-mail me (Jeanie) if you’d like to participate or want to know more about it.   We hope you are blessed as we gab and “confess” and learn from this awesome book and that  you’ll let us know what you are thinking, too…

   Candi, wise and gentle worshiper; Amy Jo – head of worship and prayer interactions for Heaven Fest (www.heavenfest.com)

Chapter Nine: Less-Wild Lovers

I am kicking it off this time:   “In the sadness we feel from the messages the arrows have left, we often get off course and begin to live off our giftedness or our wounded passions and fantasies instead of finding that place of grace in communion with Jesus.   What counterfeit lovers have you turned to? Food?   Busy-ness?   What else?  How have they ‘so intertwined themselves with your identity that  to give them up feels like personal death?’”

I haven’t given much thought to any of the rest of the study guide questions, but the one above points out an interesting possibility: that you can live below and away from the beauty of the life God has in mind for you even through your giftedness, your very God-given ability.   So that very thing, something meant to bless and be life-giving, can become your obsession, your possession – and end up suffocating you as you try to hang onto to it.

I have specifically seen this happen with ministries, pastors in churches or some one in a leadership position.   It is rampant among worship leaders – fearful of everyone else’s talent, they rise up to protect their territories and become miserable in the thing meant to bring joy to the heart of God.   Intercessors are often terribly protective of their “prayer ministry.”   I’ve been the guiltiest of them all.

The authors call this ‘clinging to position, title or even good works’ something like going to a fair that sells “soul curiosities,” things that can even be good like attending Bible Studies, attending spiritual retreats or small groups, even joining a church, but become nothing more than a way to quiet the deep longings we don’t want to admit are there.  

So here we are – created in love, players in God’s cosmic story of intense joy and love, wooed by Him, longing for Him, but beaten down by apathy and the message of the Arrows, we choose something that “works,” or looks right: we go to church and volunteer and memorize scripture and we “are both drawn to…and fear…that place of relational intimacy that Satan lured Adam and Eve away from so long ago…”   The voice of God calls.   The heart of the Father draws.   Am I willing to give up everything that has anesthetized me, the addictions the authors expose as “adulteries” – anything that replaces God in whatever form in our lives?   Will I give up competence and order, title, reputation and ability to be, to be His.? Can I lay aside fears and talents and impressiveness?   Can I die to self?

http://youtube.com/watch?v=jJvyGRV6XBs&feature=related

&&&&&

Here are Heather’s thoughts:   I read this chapter a couple of weeks ago now. I have about 4-5 pages of notes on this chapter that I can share with anyone who’s listening. But really I am going to try to bottom line how the “Less Wild Lovers” in my life have caught and tangled me up into a weird mess of “doing” instead of being. (Note from Jeanie: you can link to Heather’s blog from my links on the leftside!)

I am a Martha. Some loved ones in my life have known that for years. I think Martha was trying to do the “right thing,”  I really do! She saw all that needed to be done and was busy doing it. She got a bad rap, though, as she wasn’t doing it at the right time, really. There’s a time for all things under the sun, and that goes for cooking, cleaning and laundry too, unfortunately! But she did miss out on being at the Master’s feet. That was the right thing to do at that moment. (See Luke 10:37-42.)

Well, so do I. I look at my house, my job, my kids, the “things” that need to be done, and it can get overwhelming. God’s been calling me to rest for such a long time. At first I thought it meant to rest from ministry. In some ways it did. Then I thought well maybe it means to rest, rest, you know, take it easy. Well, I do think He wanted me to slow down, but you know what, it wasn’t to be on vacation, it was to be with Him. True rest, with God.

Busy-ness has become my less wild lover.

How sad.   I mean it.   It’s so sad. I like Martha want to do the right thing…Last fall my sister in law left our company to work for the Department of Wildlife in Lakewood . When she left there was a hole there that needed to be filled. I seriously thought that in some ways I was the one to fill that hole. I thought it was the right thing to do. My business partner/mother-in-law/best friend asked me to pray about it, and I didn’t.   I was in full rebellion, you could say.   Get this, I didn’t pray because I didn’t want to let the company down, and I felt it was my duty to help out (I know, I know- that does not make sense).  It’s completely stupid!   I admit it, but there ya go, just being honest. Soo… This past 9 months I have been trying soooo hard to make it all work. I have scrambled and grasped at what I thought the right thing was, (still not praying though), and it has worn me down. I’ve been very sad at the compromise of my time with my kids. I’ve not been able to find peace. My health has even been affected, not to mention I’ve not had the rest He’s promised me I would have.

When the time came to begin thinking about the summer schedule with my girls, My business partner/mother-in-law/best friend asked me to pray about it, and this time I—didn’t (YES, I know-what a dumb thing to do, AGAIN!). Well, I got out my little post it note, and asked God to show me what hours to work. I knew already that I had childcare taken care of for about 20 hours each week, but I felt like God was going to let me cut back, as I made out my work schedule.   I thought God had blessed it. I presented it to the company and Maureen, my business partner/mother-in-law/best friend said that God had told her that I was going to be taking the summer off. I cried. That is the desire of my heart, friends, to be at home with my kids.   But in trying to do the right thing, I had cut myself off from the mission that God has given me for my girls!   I was choosing rebellion, in trying to do the right thing, because it simply isn’t right for me, not at this moment in my life.  

I’ve only been home a couple of weeks now, but my joy has been restored. I am home and I’m finding rest again. The less wild lover of “being busy” is an evil trap for me. It’s not good for me to run too hard or too fast. I need to slow down and sit at the masters feet again.

&&&&&

Candi’s response to the book:   Again, as I read this book I’m astonished at how the authors put so many of my feelings into words.   I’m amazed that they’re able to pinpoint my feelings letting me know that I’m not alone.

Page 126 says exactly what I’m learning to understand. “But this side of Eden, even relationship with God brings us to a place where a deeper work in our heart is called for if we are to be able to continue our spiritual journey.   It is in this desert experience of the heart, where we are stripped of the protective clothing of the roles we have played in our smaller stories, that the Message of the Arrows reasserts itself.   Healing, repentance, and faith are called for in ways we have not known previously.   At this place on our journey, we face a wide and deep chasm that refuses us passage through self-effort.   And it is God’s intention to use this place to eradicate the final heart walls and obstacles that separate us from him.”   And then they quote Isaiah 45:2-3.

A couple of years ago I went out one night with some old non-Christian friends.   We went midnight bowling (they play really loud music!) and it was a really fun time.   Towards the end of the night I was just sitting absorbing the atmosphere and thinking to myself, “I’m really enjoying myself probably more than I would if I was at church right now.   And all I’m doing is being who I am, no masks, no acts of service, just having fun.   Why isn’t it like this when I’m supposedly ‘serving God’?”  

I really think this is when I decided that I wasn’t going deep enough with God.   I decided then that I would try to figure it out.   If God was the best and the greatest, why wasn’t my heart truly in it?   Pg. 128 talks about two highways and this is when I decided to start the journey down the Unknown Road.   Of course, I’m still on the journey, but around every bend I’m drawing closer to God in ways that I never knew existed before.

So now in the chapter I come to the “less-wild lovers” and I realize that I’ve dealt with both in my life!   At times I’ve chosen the path of competence or order.   And then I had kids!!!   I can’t keep up with it…it’s too much work!   I feel like a failure when my expectations and my results don’t match up which happens a lot.   Talk about a blow to your confidence!   Then I just quit trying and nothing gets done.   I know my mother still struggles with this.   (I think I’ll have her read this book!)   I also put my efforts into busyness.   There are times where I think I should just slow down, but I don’t think I’d know how to function.   My life is constantly a struggle to prioritize and I don’t think this is what God had in mind.

I also related with the path of addiction.   When I was younger I remember being addicted to new romance, new adventures, new opportunities.   “We put our hope in meeting a lover who will give us some form of immediate gratification, some taste of transcendence that will place a drop of water on our parched tongue.” Pg. 133.   And they make us feel so alive!   It can be a strong temporary high.   At some time I think I made a decision to not let myself “feel” anymore because then I wouldn’t have to be disappointed when reality kicked in.   It stopped me from trying to find the next adventure, but it also silenced my heart.   Now I’m learning to understand the process that God uses to become the object of our affection, our addiction.   It so much more fulfilling!      

&&&&&

Amy Jo   winds it up for us:   “We know He is calling us to give up the less-wild lovers that have become so much a part of our identity, embrace our nakedness, and trust in his goodness.” (p.127)

Once upon a time, when I was studying classic literature in preparation for my English degree, I illustrated a few key scenes from Pilgrim’s Progress. Vanity Fair was one of them, and I appreciated the authors’ in-depth exploration of what that city must have been like in the mind of John Bunyan. As I read how a lot of us resign ourselves to living there, assuming we will never actually GET to the Celestial City, I couldn’t help but think about one of the most influential, respected women alive and impacting our world: Oprah. God knows I love her, and I have a great deal of admiration for all of her humanitarian efforts, but wow, is she a confused woman! I wonder if she really is as happy as she portrays for all of us on international television. I have a sneaking suspicion, based on her random recent explorations into spirituality, that she has become disenchanted with the God of her up-bringing, and is “settling” for less-wild lovers. Read Curtis and Eldredges’ description of Vanity Fair and think of our friend Oprah…

“We set up housekeeping and entertain ourselves as well as possible at the booths in the Fair that sell a variety of soul curiosities, games and anesthetics. The curiosities sold at the fair are endless in their diversity, many of them good in and of themselves: Bible study, community service, religious seminars, hobbies we try to convince ourselves are eternally transcendent (e.g., ‘Wow, I can’t wait to ski deep powder!’), service to our church, going out to dinner. But we find ourselves doing them more and more to quiet the heart voice that tells us we have given up on what is most important to us.” (p. 130)

As I read this, I think of the train she fuels for Eckhart Tolle’s book, A New Earth: Awakening to your Life’s Purpose, and her continuing support of “The Secret,” a “new” way of allowing yourself to achieve your heart’s desires by re-training your mind. One has only to visit the homepage of her website (Oprah.com) to realize that she is SEARCHING… these are the headlines today: “Oprah’s Soul Series Webcast” and “You Can Heal Your Life” and “The Secret Behind The Secret”. Oprah is probably inarguably the most powerful woman in our world today—not because she occupies some governmental throne, but because she has been given the throne to peoples’ hearts, winning them one by one through her philanthropic efforts and “open” searching. I wonder how many people realize that they have made her a “less-wild” lover, even as she points them to other “less-wild” lovers. (I know that I myself have been guilty of being romanced by her!)

One more thought on Oprah, before I move on to other things in this chapter: won’t you join with me in praying for her to find again her “Sacred Romancer”? Imagine the impact she could have on our lost world, if she were to suddenly declare that she had found what she had been looking for—Someone she once knew—and then proceeded to point the masses to the True Healer! You can bet your chin whiskers that Satan wants nothing more than to keep this lovely and precious, highly-worshipped woman in the dark, as she continues to point others to various “less-wild” lovers. Pray for her with me, will you?

And now for something more personal… “Our adversary also seduces us to abide in certain emotions that act as less-wild lovers, particularly shame, fear, lust, anger, and false guilt. They are emotions that ‘protect’ us from the more dangerous feelings of grief, abandonment, disappointment, loneliness, and even joy and longing, that threaten to roam free in the wilder environs of the heart. These are feelings that frighten us, sometimes even long years into our Christian journey.” (p.132) This particular list of less-wild lovers is by no means complete. One has only to read on in this chapter to see an even longer list of possibilities, including addictions. I now propose that it is possible to be addicted to feelings of guilt and disappointment.

Long ago, I was taught that Christians had no business experiencing “negative” emotions: anger, sorrow, depression, etc. and thus they had no visible place in my life. But they were there. Less long ago, I became convinced that these so-called “negative” emotions were perhaps more valuable than happiness and freedom, because they have a tendency to grab our attention and focus us on God—we learn more from the “negative” emotions than from the “positive” emotions. Today I am willing to say—out loud, on Jeanie’s blog—that perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps ALL emotions are equally valid and valuable; that none are inherently good or evil. Perhaps the thing that matters is how we CHOOSE to be lead by them. Should I feel guilty for being blessed, when so many others in my world are suffering? No. Not as long as I am giving proper credit to the Romancer. Should I feel guilty if I am not happy when enduring hardship? No. But worship is required of my heart in the midst of it. God gave us each of these emotions—placed them squarely in our hearts, which were made in the image of HIS heart!

Forgive me, oh God, for falling for the less-wild lovers of pride, busyness, intellect / philosophy, discipline, vanity, sleep and numbness, guilt, admiration of others, etc. I would so much rather be recklessly, freely, wildly in-love with You. Keep showing me Who You REALLY are! “Batter my heart, Three-Personed God!” (John Donne)

&&&&&

I am so grateful to Candi and Heather and Amy Jo for sharing their hearts with me.   We only have 3 chapters left in the book, but a lifetime full in continuing to discover God’s heart!…Jeanie

NOTE TO SELF:   His, and His alone.   No ministry, church work, “should” or anything else can replace the love of my life.

 previous sacred romance posts here

We are currently reading and responding to the chapter I have most wanted to get to in our book club selection, The Sacred Romance.   It is Chapter 9, “Less-Wild Lovers.”   I wanted to share a significant portion from near the beginning of the chapter to whet your appetite just in case you are finding that despite your “positional” Christianity you are sensing a loss, and trying to quiet your heart and convince it that this is all there is.

“Most of us remember the time of our innocence as the Haunting…innocence not as being sinless, but as that time before our experience with the Arrows crystallized into a way of handling life which is the false self.   The Haunting calls to us unexpectedly in the melody and words of certain songs…the smile of a friend…the laughter of children…the smell of a perfume…a story.   However the Haunting comes, it often brings with it a bittersweet poignancy of ache, the sense that we stood at a crossroads somewhere in the past and chose a turning that left some shining part of ourselves – perhaps the best part – behind, left it behind with the passion of youthful love, or the calling of a heart vocation, or simply in the sigh of coming to terms with the mundane requirements of life.”

Is your heart “seized with palpable waves of longing and regret?”   Are you just living a life of resignation thinking, “This is the way it is, I had better learn to deal with it?” (page 125).

What false comforts and less-wild lovers have you taken?  

Here is a partial list of the things I have used for comfort in the past, a way to feel: work/workaholism, achievement in career, church (yes, church), joining groups or causes or denominations, food, endless hours of TV surfing/zoning out, knowledge, control, busy-ness, outward appearance for the sake of approval, people-pleasing,  independence and isolation, medication, gossip and hatefulness, self-improvement, lust for learning, drivenness…did I mention control?   There are more.   Just wanted to get you started thinking.

How are you anesthetizing yourself?

“Walk in the Spirit and you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.”   Galatians 5.16 NKJV

http://www.jeanierhoades.com/category/sacred-romance

These are the observations of The Sacred Romance- Drawing Closer to the Heart of God (by Brent Curtis and John Eldredge) among a few friends.   We hope you will be blessed by our “confessions” and will let us know what you are thinking, too…

MEET CANDI!   If you’ve been reading Candi, you already know this married mother of two loves non-fiction and even actually enjoys instruction manuals!   Candi is one of the most gracious women you could ever meet.   Intelligent and well-spoken, Candi described herself as “simple, yet elegant.”   And while nothing could be more true, she is also a practical joker and gets away with it because no one can believe that could come from this picture of grace and sophistication!

Candi likes Letterman, Pepsi and spagetti.   To her Burger King beats McDonalds, ice cream is better than yogurt and she is a night owl. Music is a huge part of her passion and as you can see, she has  two  adorable children, Clayton, 6, who is quite a singer himself and Lainey, 3 1/2 years old.   Her dream job of being an event planner is surely within her grasp, as she and her husband’s family are the proprietors of The Stonebrook Manor, a truly beautiful special events center (www.stonebrookmanor.com) .

Candi’s  greatest fear is that she’ll choose the easy road rather than the right road for her life, but if you know her, you doubt that is possible.   Her post about the chapter this week is a powerful look at what God is out to save us from!   You’re awesome, Candi!   Thanks for sharing your heart with us here!

Chapter Eight: The Adversary – Legends of the Fall

Candi starts us off on this chapter:   For the last week I’ve had writer’s block.  I was supposed to start the writing on Chapter 8 over a week ago, but couldn’t get to it mostly because I was really busy.  However, I was having a small problem knowing what God wanted me to say.  Now I know.  

Last Wednesday night my Great-Aunt Stella died and I, along with my Mom and Dad, was with her in the room when it happened.  Her death wasn’t a surprise as we knew she was experiencing her last days.  

Let me tell you about Auntie Stella.  She was one of the sweetest people I’ve ever known and when you were in her presence you just felt loved.  Last year my parents moved her from her house into a nursing home because at that point she couldn’t walk and needed medical treatment.  She had the best attitude.  She was the type that made lemonade out of lemons and she settled into her new environment like it was a new adventure.  She had such an impact on many of the nurses and workers that cared for her.  

The kids and I visited her regularly and did she ever love my children!  In fact, she was my firstborn son,  Clayton’s, very first visitor in the hospital  when he was born.  Auntie Stella, there is definitely something missing in the world now that you are gone.  I can’t wait to see you again in our Lord’s presence and I love you!

It was after her death that I realized what I needed to say in response to the chapter of our adversary.  Please note that this is a bit disturbing.  After she passed, I left the room to call my husband, brother, and sister and was gone about 20 minutes.  After the phone calls I returned to the room and as I walked in I was hit with the smell of “death.”  

Now I’ve been told that when you smell “death” you know it and it was horrible.  I left shortly after that, but that smell was all I could smell all the way home and it was so bad it was making me dry-heave.  A mile before my house I could smell a skunk and I’m telling you I welcomed the skunk smell just to be able to replace the smell   [of death] that I could actually taste.  I immediately showered when I got home to release me of that stink.

You know what God showed me?  Sin is “death” and DEATH STINKS.  God needed me to experience “death” in order to truly grasp our adversary’s plan.  In reading this book, God has been romancing my spirit!  It’s been awesome, wonderful, incredible.  Honestly words can’t fully describe it.  However, God showed me through this week’s events just how putrid sin and death really are.  After experiencing this, I realize the worship I’ve been giving God just isn’t doing Him justice!  Father, forgive me for not giving you the ultimate praise you so rightly deserve.  May I praise you daily with my life and return to you the love that you so freely give!

Amy Jo says:   “His [Satan’s] desire was, and still is, to possess everything that belongs to God, including the worship of all those whom God loves.” (p.101) He will settle for less than outright worship though, let me tell you. Page 108 held for me a new concept: the neutralization of worship. “He [Satan] separates beauty from truth and thus our thirst from our religious practice and the obedience of faith… He replaces the love affair with a religious system of do’s and don’ts that parch our hearts and replaces our worship and communion services with entertainment.”     I had never thought of it before.

For example, as a worship leader, I am always conscious of my heart’s attitude as I go before others and attempt to assist them in worshiping God corporately. Is it possible that Satan considers it a victory when I am sucked out of the worship experience for any reason at all: intrusive thoughts, wardrobe malfunction, band miscommunication, people who don’t sing and stand there with their arms folded across their chest? I know I can’t be perfect, because I notice stuff; my senses just EXIST, man! And surely God is honored by my effort, but is there any way I can present Him with more excellent worship? Any way I can encourage those I lead to stay “present” during the song portion of our worship service? Any way I can help dismantle the unwritten supposition that we’re up there performing, and that it’s a great time to “check out”? These are only some of the thoughts I have been thinking lately on the topic of worship. One day, I fear some poor soul somewhere, will suffer the cumulative effect of all this rumination in the form of an impromptu sermon. (Look out, eh?)

Another new concept for me was something I only noticed now about the story of Adam and Eve, a story I’ve known ever since I can remember. When Satan was quizzing them on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he subsequently tempted them with this phrase: “You will not surely die, for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Gen. 3.4-5) Is it possible that Satan was not necessarily tempting them with equality to God but perhaps the desire for godliness—to know, be aware of, and always be able to discern the difference between good and evil? Whoa. Talk about the ultimate example of disguising himself as a messenger of the Light! Thinking about their temptation in this way makes me realize how tricky Satan can be. May I always align my quest to be “like” God with His actual commands!

 I found the first paragraph on page 106 to be especially poignant. I cannot quote it here because it is too long, but for those of you who don’t have a copy of the book, it is a colorful analogy of the romance between God and His creation. It entails a description of how she is seduced and cheats on Him and is raped while He is forced not to intervene because He cannot convince her to trust Him enough to let Him rescue her. Over time, His beloved’s beauty suffers the effects of alcohol, drugs, occult practices, and infant sacrifice “until she is no longer recognizable in body or soul,” and yet He even sends His only Son to talk with her about His love for her though He knows that she will eventually kill Him. The whole time I was reading this, I just wanted to SHAKE the Beloved and tell her what she is doing—to somehow stop her from hurting God so much. It was a weird feeling because I knew it was an analogy the whole time, and kept alternately putting myself it the shoes of the Beloved (since I am part of His Beloved!). “All this and more God has endured because of His refusal to sop loving us.   Indeed, the very depth and faithfulness of His love for us, along with His desire for our freely given love in return, are what give Satan the ammunition to wound God so deeply as he carries out his unceasing campaign to make us into God’s enemy.” I wonder, How have I personally been like this description of the Beloved?

Finally! THIS chapter addresses the question I posed at the end of my review for chapter one: How will these authors address the inherent deceitful wickedness of my heart that is mentioned in Jeremiah 17:9? This whole time I have been wondering how they can keep validating my heart’s longings. They don’t know me!

I think this is so important, that I really must type the whole paragraph for those of you who don’t have this book and are just randomly reading our review because you like us…”’But can you really trust the thirst of your heart?’ the enemy whispers in my ear… And the answer to that is, ‘Yes. Once my heart is separated from the life of the Sacred Romance, offered to me through the atonement of Christ, and left to seek out life on its own terms, there is no perversity it will not sink to.’ Part of Satan’s grand strategy of separating us from our heart, once Jesus has drawn us to an awareness of being His sons and daughters through believing faith, is to convince us that our heart’s desires are at core illegitimate.” (Pp. 108-109) Well, then! I’m going to have to chew on this one some more—it goes against everything I’ve ever known to be true! If it’s true that Satan wants me to think this of my heart, and I –of course—don’t want to give Him ammo, then I need to reevaluate some things. May I be shown the truth about the heart You’ve given me, God!

Let me close my review of this chapter with another random, yet personally profound quote: “Given all this, it becomes crucial that we become a generation of storytellers who are both recapturing the glory and joy of the Sacred Romance even as we tell each other our particular stories, so that we can help each other, through God’s Spirit, see His plan of redemption at work in us.” (p.114) So be it, starting with me!

Jeanie’s thoughts:  “…it is the voice of our adversary…the antagonist…”

I  really did not even want to get into this chapter, after having just read two about God as the Romancer, my heart’s Pursuer, me as God’s Beloved.   But what a great reminder of enemy ploys.   What a resounding call to get free from the bondages and enslavements that tie our hearts in knots, slowly, but surely sucking the life out of us, keeping us from the freely given and abundant existence God intended, and quietly drawing us away from the One…

Isn’t this the main question when we wonder why we are Beloved and yet live full of fear and doubt and self-hatred: “What is the source of the persistent accusations in our head and heart?”

This chapter was just rich with an explanation of enemy tactics.  But they pointed out 2 main ways our adversary is able to separate us “from our heart…to seduce us…by making us believe that it is God who is our enemy” (page 110).  The first, the authors likened to Cinderella’s evil stepsisters, the voices that taunt us with lies about who we are and about who God is.  He deceives us into thinking he isn’t even there, but that it is just us hearing sentences and voices in our head and we’re just struggling on our own.  And isn’t this why we often don’t ask for prayer support from people who care?  We believe it’s just me…

The enemy of our souls, though, once finally recognized for the troubler he is, will often become enlarged in our minds as we realize the battle in spiritual realms.  We can begin to look for him and his workings everywhere, giving him more space than he is due, demon-sensitivity rising, which the writers rightly point out can become almost a form of worship.

I’ve given Satan too much due, too much credit, partly sometimes just by not exposing the “evil works of darkness,” or shamefully covering how he somehow defeated me.  He not only separates us from God, (we, hanging our heads in shame and running the other way), he isolates us from one another.  If we’re not mindful, we’ll end up living carefully constructed lives that become dishonest temples of reputations, leaving our friends and family and people we love to suffocate in their own battles alone, not realizing we would understand.

   

And finally Heather:   Well, this chapter couldn’t have been timelier for me. I, like Jeanie, did not want to delve into this chapter after reading of the romancer of my heart. It seems so anticlimactic. However, what this chapter has done for me has been quite profound. I have found myself within these pages probably more so than any of the others. I am saddened to say that, on one hand, yet I know God has been with me the entire journey and is here with me even in the midst of my realization of the deception that has been playing out in my heart and life in recent months.

 

I have been lulled by the enemy. The truths I’ve known to be true have become diluted by the prince of the earth’s whispers, yes, but also by my own attempt to do it all, and to make everyone happy. This chapter talks about how satan can lure you away, then accuse you with the very things he’s lured you away with! With that thought I think, “Wow, how easily manipulated I am, that he can lie to me, then use those lies to keep me cornered!”   I will slowly become ineffective because I can no longer hear the truth. I can even assist satan by my own weaknesses and really, he can stand back in the corner, just affirming my self condemning thoughts and not really do anything at all!

 

I think the purpose of satan and his arrows is: “..to continue my life separated emotionally and spiritually from myself my friends and my family as well as God my father-simply filling in time”, (page 115). I think that as satan has had me so busy running around trying to do the “right thing”,   I’ve really lost sight of what God has intended for me, which in turn has cost my freedom. I‘ve been stuck in the bondage of “doing the right thing”, because it simply was not what God wanted of me.   The truth is I couldn’t even hear God anymore. I had given the voice of my enemy more credence than the voice of my creator. Maybe it sounds extreme, but it’s true. I couldn’t hear God, and thankfully He loves me enough to find other ways to communicate to me if I can’t hear him. He is my pursuer, my romancer. He did let me try this my own way, though. He waited for me to see how ineffective my way was, (it was!) .

 

This chapter talks about how the enemy will even use the voices of those around us, yes, even our loved ones. A comment meant as a joke maybe, or something said in anger that pierces our heart. Then the inner dialogue begins, and we cultivate this lie into our own truth. On page 116 we see that satan is hoping to deceive us by allowing us to think it’s our own inner voice, not his: “I am not here. It’s just you struggling with all these things.”   We confuse his lying voice with our own. How freaky is that?!   He is a snake! We have to be so careful to know what Truth really is! I know this all too well…

 

So, I can tell you that the messages from the arrows are there. There seems to be just enough believability within them that I have accepted them. I began to believe them, and made them part of my identity. I will tell you that today, I know God is with me, He loves me and He is helping me find Truth again. I feel like I need to be in a place of really going slow, walking intentionally, not willy nilly doing this and that, but slowing down to hear him again. I have tasted freedom, but I know it’s a thin line between walking in truth and crossing over into the accuser’s territory once again. I need to stay in truth right now. It’s necessary for my well being. This chapter was necessary for my walk and my health, now may I continue to seek God and only His way for my life.

Thanks again my friends and just so everyone knows how I really feel: to hell with the devil!…Jeanie

 

 NOTE TO SELF: To You, Lord, be glory in the Church and in my life forever and ever.   Amen.