The Morning After (Burning Ones)

I wrote the original version of this on Oct. 4, 2009 about an experience the night before at the Burning Ones Youth Conference. Nolan Clark blew us all away explaining what it meant to be a burning one, whether the beings of flame such as Isaiah saw (Is 6), or the human kind. I've expanded a little here.

I've prayed for years for God to burn out of me the things that were unlike him. I prayed this Saturday night as I have many times. Only this time I wasn't letting go; like Jacob I was wrestling with God until I got what I came for. If I ended up with a limp (metaphorical or real), so be it.

When God really got hold of me back in my hippie days, I had a vision. At the end of the vision I was floating before God, like we were the only two things in existence. I was this tiny speck, and he was an all consuming, blazing sun of pure love and holiness (among other things). I couldn't understand how I could continue to exist; I should have been reduced to subatomic particles.

As I prayed at Burning Ones, that fire reappeared-- only this time I was inside the fire, and it was inside me. God's holiness, his utter otherness, his alien-ness, overwhelmed me and became part of me, became me. The things that were not of him were suddenly as other to me as they are to him, and they just vanished.

Another thing I've prayed many times was to be able to see people as God does. A while back he told me clearly that if he did that for me, it would destroy me. "The intensity of even simple aspects of their nature-- like their maleness or femaleness-- would overwhelm you." So I quit asking, somehow knowing this wasn't a forever answer.

In the midst of the fiery experience last night, one of the things God said was, "Now you can ask." I knew immediately this was what he meant so I asked. And he did it. Everyone around me was now made of living fire-- holy, beautiful, pure. So this is what it means that we are made in the image of God! Or at least a glimpse of it.

The rest of the night was beyond anything I had ever experienced. It made the most intense acid trips in my college days look boring and pathetic. I knew who to pray for as God would let me see a dark spot in someone's fire. But I not only knew who to pray for, there was no question of how to pray. God showed me what to pray, or at times just prayed through me, or just spoke through me deep down into the beings of whomever I was praying for. I don't even know everything I prayed for; it wasn't for me. This was beyond prophetic insight. It was beyond merely understanding that I was made in God's image. I recognized God's image that was (is) me, that spoke and moved through me and everyone else. It happened again today a couple of times, too, though much more matter of factly, without the overwhelming awareness of the Burning One above all other burning ones.

And that's my prayer for everyone; that you not only see who God is, and who God made you to be, but that when you look in the mirror, you see the image of God he made you to be. And that you can then see others the same way.

I've only seen people as beings of fire a couple of times since, but the clarity, intensity, purity, and sheer joy and power of that night remains. To God be the glory, but a special thanks to Nolan, who brought us to a place where such things could happen.

Grace and Purity - Finding the Balance

We always want to make it about us.
Often we think something like, "this is my balance (right this instant) so it must be THE balance." Even more often we think (and run across) the attitude that "this is what I think the balance should be (or would like it to be) so it must be THE balance... even though I don't model this."
We do this individually, and we do it in groups-- families, friends, cliques, clubs, political affiliations, as leaders, or within the Church. But this leaves no room to "work out your own salvation" (Philippians 2/12); rather it requires everyone else to perform to our imperfect standards, ignoring both God's ultimate standards and the fact that he made us individuals, and works with us as individuals. (We were never meant to be clones or droids.)
While the concept applies to almost everything, at the moment I'm thinking of it in reference to the balance between grace and purity. (Most of us would have expected the second attribute to be justice, as we see justice and grace as polar opposites. But there is also a tension between grace and purity, especially in the Church today. Some groups are big on grace and some are big on purity; few are big on both.)
Our holy God calls us to holiness. Our pure God calls us to purity. Nothing less will do. But because we are not God, because we are imperfect, God-- in his love for us-- gives us grace, all the grace we need to cover the distance between wherever we are and that place of perfect holiness and purity. The grace to be as he originally made us to be, in his image, his sons and daughters.
But we, as people, often refuse to extend that same level of grace (or anything even close) to one another, though we so desperately need and want it ourselves. We want grace for ourselves, but demand purity and perfection in others. What is God's response to this response of ours?
"Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." (Mt 7/1-2, NIV)
So, we can demand perfection, holiness and purity in others, and be crushed under the weight of our hypocrisy, or we can extend grace to others, and dwell in grace.
And yet, his grace is sufficient (I Cor 12/9). Otherwise, none of us would have any hope. Since he has extended this grace to us, we should extend it to others.
If your concept of God is bounded solely by laws, you might spend some time pondering Jesus' words on laws. The two greatest commandments, according to Jesus, are to "love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind" (Mt 22/37) and to "love your neighbor as yourself". (Mt 22/39)
And how will everyone know that we are his disciples? By how thoroughly we demand perfection from each other? Nope. "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." (Jn 13/35)
While true love calls forth purity and holiness in each other (and models it!) if God in his love extends grace, then for us to do anything less is not only foolish, not only hypocritical, not only ugly, but a repudiation of all we claim to believe. At the same time, since he calls us to purity and holiness, we should go for it with everything within us!
Lord, forgive us all, and help us to remember who we are, who we were made to be, loved and loving, graceful and pure.