So far as we are failing to see the light, we should be looking more towards the lampshade.

We should not be wearing the lampshade on our heads. We should not mistake it for the light. But we need to look for what light comes through. It is not a different light than we would find anywhere else, but it has much to say about opening our eyes.

My light lately has been largely through the scriptures of Stephen Gaskin. Not error-free, but much truth, as clean a truth as he could bring through. If you can see the light through that, it too is the only light there is, the same light you could find in the Bible. It is not a matter of who has "more" truth; it is a matter of how much you are able and willing to look.

Between him and Jesus, and some painfully illuminating recent experience (losing something I'd treasured and seeing what that revealed about me) I've been thinking I don't look so hot, and that I'll need some serious guidance and potentially inconvenient following to ever bear a closer look.

Views: 159

Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Self awareness of how much we are lacking is a good beginning to letting His light shine through us. I pray that you accept God's grace in helping you in your journey.
Wonderful metaphor. Thank you.
The whole world and everything in it is God's ongoing work which includes an ongoing process in which God is revealing truth to us.

Messages we receive before we're ripe to receive them just have to go into storage while we ripen; the process is most efficient when someone can be led to precisely what he needs to nourish himself, precisely when he's fully prepared and hungry enough to receive it.

Efficiency, of course, is not everything. Obstacles and setbacks also have divine purposes. But generally we can expect the most rapid progress when someone is eager to learn, looking to God for guidance, and nourishing himself from sources he can recognize as appropriate to what he knows and what he seeks.

By such considerations, it is not a matter of how much "Truth" might be found in some "Scripture" (or in any other writing) but whether the Living God sets it before us and tells us: "Read!"

I regret that so many contemporary Friends have lost all appetite for reading in the Bible! But I don't think this is necessarily a mistake, at this time. They simply won't read anything they don't expect to give them new, significant truth; and that is only reasonable-- But their assumption that there's nothing essential there for them is utterly wrong!

If we see a "message from God" as like our modern model of a communication: like a note wrapped around a rock and tossed over our fence... the real message is not in either that rock or that letter, but in what God intends us to see through it.

We don't want to build cathedrals on little pebbles, which is what people do when they think that the pebbles and the notes and every little piece of dirt on them must be "Truth", or even "true." (Just think of that stuff as "extra minerals"; it's not worth breaking teeth on them!)

If you can be moved by the Spirit of God to write and speak and know the truth-- which is what George Fox found written in the Christian scriptures, as he read them-- then you can be spared much confusion between due reverence for what you honestly recognize as their true message-- and idolatrous servitude to notions that aren't showing you true light.

Nothing in the Bible-- or anything else in the world-- is meaningless "accident"; but many of the details are there for reasons other than literal "Truth"-- One reason being to show us human corruption, cluelessness and self-deception at work, if I'm not badly mistaken.

What good ways are there to read, and use the Bible? Reading it aloud in small groups, allowing for utterly free (but spiritually-centered!) discussion is one of the better things I've found.

Reply to Discussion

RSS

Support Us

Did you know that QuakerQuaker is 100% reader supported? Our costs run to about $50/month. If you think this kind of outreach and conversation is important, please support it with a monthly subscription or one-time gift.

Latest Activity

Daniel Hughes updated their profile
5 hours ago
Martin Kelley updated their profile
20 hours ago
Martin Kelley posted a blog post

QuakerQuaker migration starting soon, can you help?

Hi QuakerQuaker fans,It's time to start the migration of QuakerQuaker to a new online platform. It…See More
20 hours ago
Martin Kelley commented on QuakerQuaker's blog post 'QuakerQuaker Resolution for 2023—Can You Help?'
"Hi Christopher, thanks for your ongoing support all this time; I understand needing to slow down…"
2nd day (Mon)
Christopher Hatton posted events
1st day (Sun)
Christopher Hatton commented on QuakerQuaker's blog post 'QuakerQuaker Resolution for 2023—Can You Help?'
"Hi Martin,   I hope other users have been making occasional/regular donations.  I am…"
1st day (Sun)
Christopher Hatton liked David Anthony's profile
1st day (Sun)
Christopher Hatton updated their profile
1st day (Sun)

© 2023   Created by QuakerQuaker.   Powered by

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service