MAKE YOUR



OWN FOREST










When it comes to God working in our lives, most of the time, we can't recognize it as it happens. We usually only see the present joy or pain or neutrality of immediate events. In other words, we can't see the forest for the trees.

But we do have many more calm moments in which to reflect on the emotional moments, moments when later we are out from under the immediate pressure of the actual event. Perhaps a time between the events of a longer process.

At these times we have the opportunity to colate the events of longer periods of time, say months or even years. Doing this "creates" a forest that we can't see when we're "up close and personal."

Making our own forest refers to using some simple mechanics that will speed the process of our understanding. Instead of endlessly mulling over the separate events, and always giving priority to the most recent, we can take those individual "trees" and put them together in such a way as to recognize not only the process, but it's eventuality. And because we're trying to do things God's way, we can see His purpose for allowing these present events.

Once a person has an idea of God's working in their lives, they will gain great courage in proceeding with even the most stressful and difficult tasks; such as self revealment or the painful process of divorce.

MAKING A FOREST

Start with the assumption, the concrete assumption that ultimately God was behind the events that led up to this point in your life. That concept has to be impregnable to ANY attack. You will have to search out objective evidence. Lives are wasted because folks give in to what they would like to be evidence, but in reality is nothing more than their own wishes. Any clever person can get us very confused when all we go on is what we feel or think is true. No court will accept "hear say". Don't you accept it either.

This exercise has three aspects. The above assumption is first. A time line of you life for the last five or so years, and listening to God.

Now, being as objective as possible, at any particular time you work this exercise, run a short scenario of the events from five years ago (be very general here) thru one recognizable event from about three years ago. This event doesn't necessarily have to connect with God in any apparent way. It just has to be very significant and somehow related to your present situation. Perhaps it's something that got you to thinking things over; helped you see your situation wasn't really serving you. This might have been a time when you started to reflect backward and realized that some aspect of your life has been unsatisfactory for many years.

From that event, go forward to the next most significant event that you can find. Don't worry about getting all the details of any event, or insisting that the events come in any particular order. There can be great gaps of time between these events, initially. Be very relaxed in the contruction of this time line. If you give this time line a few days to fill itself out, pretty soon you'll have enough material to start the actual exercise. You'll have a scenario of the last five years or so of your life. Every time you look at this timeline as a whole, regardless of how filled out it is, you'll be looking at the "forest." Once you are back away from the trees, imagine that you can split yourself in two.

On this scenario/context place one half of the split you. Let these images "sink in" for a bit, just putting youself in the scenario. Imagine yourself working thru the events you've listed and going on the the next. Become a third person watching you live out your life in that forest. This will establish a firm memory for you to refer to when going to the next step.

Once this scenario is firmly in your mind, back away until the whole forest is only the size of a computer screen in the surrounding universe. It's as if your life was like that movie, "The Truman Show." You're watching your life on TV. Directly in front of you is God. He, too, is watching Your Show.

You are so near to Him that you hear His thoughts. [A HUSHED TONE HERE] He is discussing His purpose in leading you to the present moment in the process. He starts this discussion with His initial involvement five years ago. "Now, let's see. It looks like time to have ________ start the process of standing on his own two feet. He's learned enough to get the Work done, but needs to learn more dependence on me and not __________. "

Several times, as God comments on the events of your time line He will repeat His overall objective for your life. What He is trying to do with your life. You'll hear Him planning the schedule of events, and His reasoning behind including those particular events; what they were meant to accopmplish in advancing your training. Listen carefully to what He says. He is the Great Objectivity.

We can gain some valuable insight by just contructing such a time line for the Biblical Patriarch Abraham. In retrospect, we have a pretty good idea of what God was accomplishing with Abe's life. Once we get a good grasp of the time line concept, we can move back away from Abraham's life to our universal position behind God. From there we can imagine what God might say as He leads Abraham along.

We don't even have to go outside the Bible to understand Abe's life for God. But just for better understanding of why God would choose Abram to father the nation of Israel, we'll include some things from the book of Jasher; mentioned twice in the Bible.

ABRAHAM'S TIMELINE:

Please don't hold me to any of these dates. They are based on a lot of very loose pieces of evidence. Some of these dates are based on the book of Jasher.


1948-2123 AM = = 175 years

1948 Abram is born to Terah
1948 Nimrod tires to kill Abe
1948 Terah substitutes another child and hides Abe in a cave for ten years.
1958 Abe leaves the cave to join Noah and Shem
2008 Comes back home; breaks up Terah's idols.
2009 God tells Abe to leave land and family
____ God changes Abe's name
____ Abe arrives at Haran
____ Abe comes to the Promised Land
____ Abe meets Shem, they take the Bible's first Communion.
____ Abe gives Lot the best looking land
____ Famine hits the PL, Abe goes to Egypt
____ Pharoah kicks Abe out.
____ Abe settles in the PL
2034 Ishmael born (2034-2171=137 years)
2048 Isaac born (2048-2228=180 years)
2061 Abe told to sacrifice Isaac
2108 Jacob born (2108-2255=147 years)
2123 Abraham dies.

A CLOSER LOOK

Jasher reports that upon Abram's birth, Nimrod, king of Babylon, ordered Terah to bring the baby Abe to him so that he might be killed. Terah substituted another child for Abe and hid Abram in a cave for the next ten years. At this time he was deemed old enough to leave his parents and go live with Noah and Shem for thirty-nine years. This is where Abram learned all the things that he taught the Egyptians years later; math and astronomy among them. This is also where Abram learned the ways of God, and became solid enough in his belief of God to take later the drastic step of leaving his country.

Time to take a close look at the first recorded communication between God and Abram. It is here that we will find the key to interpreting later events in Abram's life.

God said in Genesis 12:1, "leave your country, your relatives, including your immediate family, and go until I show you a place to stop." Notice how much of this directive was carried out by Abram. He was only thirty-three percent effective. He left Babylon, but not his family. And he stopped where he reasoned to stop. He took his father and his cousin Lot with him. He went to Haran and stopped there.

It took Abram a while, but he did accomplish another third of his assignment. After the death of Terah at Haran, Abram did finally go to the promised Stopping Place. But he still had Lot with Him. He was still hanging on to his family. I wouldn't be surprised if God wasn't behind all the ruckus that Abe's and Lot's herdsmen got into over grazing land. This is what finally separated Abram from the last of his family. But this event didn't sink in heart-deep, as we'll see.

Then Abram slid back off that latest third of the accomplishment and fled to Egypt when a famine hit Palestine. He could have stayed and trusted that God would take care of him in spite of the bad conditions. He didn't trust God commpletely, yet. God had to revise His plan.

Finally, it seemed that Abram was on the right track. He went back to the Promised Land and began his family. At least he judged that he was doing OK. He had heard from God that he would have a son, but God seemed to be dragging His feet and Abe and Sarah thought to help, I guess. They were looking at circumstance, not God. Since Sarah was well beyond childbearing age, she suggested that Abe have a son by their maid. This was not uncommon in that society. The result was the birth of Ishmael.

Who would have thought that God had other plans? A year before Ishmael's manhood rights, God foretold Isaac's birth. That's when Sarah laughed. But Abraham was rolling in clover. He had Ishmael and now was to have another son. He was also soon to have another lesson. A lesson that he had failed before. That third of God's directive that said leave your kin. Abraham didn't want to let go of Ishmael. "Oh, that Ishmael be before me always." "No", God said. "Send him away."

Now, surely, Abraham had learned his "family" lesson. His father was dead. Lot was not living with Abraham. Ishmael was off to start his own twelve nations of Arabs. Abraham was walking the path God had intended.

Maybe God wanted to drive one last nail in the plan for Abraham. Perhaps He wanted Abraham to finally realize how much he trusted God. Let Abraham see, in no uncertain terms, that he had the capacity for trusting God's word to the point of killing his only son.

The thing we can know for sure is that although Abraham had a difficult task to perform, he wasn't dragged up the mountain kicking a screaming. Before leaving the two men at the bottom of the hill, Abraham said "we" will go and worship and return. We will return. How could he be sure that Isaac would also return? Because Abraham knew, with his very being, that God keeps His word.

God had promised a great population group would be Abraham's descendents. He promised Abe that a "company of nations" would come out of his loins. That's a world empire. All these people would come through Isaac. Abraham knew by this time that God would keep His promise of many descendents. Paul provides us confirmation when he says that Abe knew that if he had gone through with the killing that God would have raised Isaac from the dead. He would have to to keep His word.

The neat thing is that we can follow the events of Abraham's life, watching God interact with Abraham, finally, bringing him to the point of complete fulfillment of God's directive. And what was the purpose of that directive? To teach Abraham 100% dependence on God.

This is God's purpose for every one of us. If God is in our lives, He's there teaching us to trust Him. Faithing, is what I call it. Paradoxically, this complete dependence looks, to the world around us, like complete independence; the ability to stand alone.

But from God's side of the picture, Abraham's purpose was to produce a great world-population group that would spread the word of God's coming kingdom on the earth. God's overall objective for earth is to have it be His Throne. I even believe that "dressing" God's unfinished, created earth was one of Lucifer's tasks. When he flunked out, God created Adam (read that "human being") and told him to "tend the earth." Unfortunately, Adam failed also. At the end of the Millennium, God will step in and finish the remake and set up His Kingdom. That's what Revelation talks about when it mentions the "new heaven and new earth."

Again, what's the true value in this time line exercise? Once we get the hang of putting things together to see God's hand in our lives, our true understanding of His purpose for us will give us the courage and strength to progress ever more surely toward Him.

Get out from behind the trees and take a look at the forest.

KNOWING THE FUTURE

It has always been said that if one wishes to know the future one must study the past. One way of studying the past is the above exercise. But we are blessed that we already know the end, if not the details along the way. But even the present path can be well known by studying our own past.

As mentioned, God's objective for us is already known: our transformation into a being that, like Christ, is one hundred percent obediently trusting in God. God's objective for the present earth is to let everyone know that He's going to set up His Kingdom on the earth. This is what Jesus preached when he was here. Did you ever notice that Jesus never preached salvation? Check the references to his preaching. He went "preaching the kingdom of God." Christianity has mostly lost sight of this Gospel of Christ. They have settled on the gospel about Christ, salvation. In God's eyes, our salvation is only a by-product we receive when participating in His Greater objective, the establishment of His kingdom.

The study of our own past will clearly show what lies in the near future. God works long-term. He gets us ready for the present events. He positions others that will be of help to us. He sets up the logistics so that we progress toward participating more fully. He trains us on the large as well as the small scale. Recognizing this training is where the time line is of most help.

Want to know what you'll be doing next year? Or how you're ever going to "get out of this mess?" Make a time line and see what God has already done in your life. What skills has He given you? Remember the phrase in the book of Esther? Esther's uncle Mordecai told her that she was "come to the Kingdom for such a time as this." Esther had been trained, groomed and positioned for "such a time as this." The time, in Esther's case, was a crisis for her people, the Jews. They were in captivity to a foreign nation and were easy targets for persecution or even death. Esther, like Joseph, Daniel and Tobit were to function as God's Protectorate for the Israelites. If Esther had not fulfilled her training/positioning, her people would have perished. Are you as sure as I that Esther had no idea that she would play such an important role for her people, when Haman was fomenting his evil plan to eradicate those rebellious Jews? But it came clear to her when Mordecai reminded her of God's involvement in her life. She could see how God had acted to position her in the right place at the right time to avert the slaughter of her people. You can do the same in your life.

Your time line will show you how you have developed certain skills. The skills you have today are the one's God wants used in your present context.

In determining our future, we have a big head start over those who don't realize God. We know at least four important things.
1-The end result of our training.
2-God's purpose here on earth; in which He intends us to participate.
3-That God never asks more than we can handle.
4-What God has trained us to do so far.

If God has gifted you with the ability to speak to thousands of folks at a time, then that's what He expects of you when you shift your focus to him. He won't ask you to be a scholarly Greek resource for others if you don't already know Greek.

If you are going through some life-upheaval and don't know "what the future will bring", look at where God has brought you thus far. You'll know what comes next, and can stay pointed in that direction, instead of running around like a chicken with its head cut off worrying about an unclear future.

Know that God has "brought you to the kingdom for this hour." It probably shouldn't need mentioning that, as God continues His training, years from now you may be in a different context, using different skills. But you can surely know what the next few weeks will bring.

Faithing is a "one step at a time" thing. Recognizing your ultimate goal and your present circumstances will always allow you to take the next small step. That's what the God-journey is, one small step at a time. Faithing. Act in the present, trusting that God will take care of the future.

Now get to work on your time line, so you can eavesdrop on God as He talks about His training and plans for you. It will give you the courage to faithe.








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