The divine mentor: Lesson three

Whether you're a business owner, department manager, teacher, supervisor, or in some type of leadership capacity, you can't be a baby.  

Babies have to be taken care of: fed, changed, cleaned, loved. But as time goes on and the baby grows, they want to be more in control of their own daily destinies. They try to grab the spoon from your hands. They want to hold the bottle. Sometimes, this ends up with,  let's just say, undesired consequences. 

As my grandson learned to eat spaghetti, he eventually learned to use a fork instead of his hands. Then if he gets really sophisticated, a fork and a spoon. Thankfully, his mom and dad are good mentors. This is just another segment of life being messy. We learn to clean up too! 

As we mature, we want to be able to feed ourselves in all situations of life. We have to learn. There is usually someone to show us the initial ropes, but after a while, that mentor or supervisor or boss needs to do their own work, not the underlings. You've been shown the tools, use them. We can't be like the giant man-eating plant in the Broadway musical "Little Shop of Horrors" (the original working title of this  lesson) who constantly screams "FEED ME!" There's actually another application to that scenario that we'll come back to later.

The question is how do we grow and mature and become truly useful without learning how to do it ourselves? Now I'm not necessarily talking about home electrical or plumbing work, there are certain people who are gifted for that. What I mean is that in order to become a better husband or father or boss or teacher or even Christ follower, we have to, at some point, take the bull by the horns and learn to do it ourselves. We cannot always expect someone else to spoon-feed us. Our mentors will eventually not always be available. We have to learn to feed ourselves. 

At church, if you're in a leadership position or "more mature" do you hear the complaint, "I left such and such church because I wasn't being fed. They had great programs and the preacher presented terrific sermons but I wasn't growing in Christ...."? When you scratch just the surface you often find that that individual, more than likely, didn't have any type of personal devotional time. And if they did, it was hit or miss. It wasn't purposeful.

Now before we go too far, do NOT think that I have this down pat. No sir.  Making time to spend with my Father is something that I always have to work at. Do I miss days? Admittedly... yes. But thankfully they are becoming fewer and fewer.

As we learn to self-feed in our Christian walk, two things happen. First,  we stoke the flames of desire. The more time spent in God's Word creates a desire to know more. We remember that we are finite. God is infinite. We can never know Him completely and it will take all of  Eternity to begin that process. And so we begin now. This most basic relationship cannot be treated even like we treat our marriages, yet we do. 

Let me explain. Speaking for the men, when we're dating we're more into the romance (we think so anyway). We want to spend time at the coffee shop or long walks at the beach. After the honeymoon, we begin slacking off.  At first a little. Then a little more. Sooner or later, we're in the doghouse, and the relationship cracks. A rebuilding of the relationship, then the marriage must begin. The only problem is that the wife already knows what we're really like. We can't fake it. 

Thankfully, God already knows us. He made us. We have nothing that we can hide from  Him. But we have to restart or rekindle the desire to want to know Him.  Unlike a spouse who may just be disgusted with us, God is eternally patient and eternally forgiving, and eternally accepting. He is all Graceful. The Holy Spirit whispers in our minds and hearts to spend time with Him.

The second thing that happens is we are put on the path to True Truth. I use the term True Truth because only God's Truth is True. Man's "truth" may be experiential and "true" for the moment, but it's not necessarily absolute. My understanding works something like this: 

As a "natural" man, an unbeliever, I understood the concept of "god" (even that sounds fishy). I could experience God in the world and universe around me (Romans 1). God "spoke" to me through His creation. I had a desire to get to know Him and find out about Him. As my desire increased, God revealed Himself through Jesus Christ. By the life, death, resurrection and Ascension of Christ, I was not only saved to Him, I got to know Him more. Then, when I took Christ on as my Savior, He sent the Holy Spirit to dwell within ME. When that happened, I was better able to discern the  Truth. And this is a continuing process for the rest of my life. Jesus put this way in John 16:13, "But when He, the Spirit of Truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth," emphasis mine.

So far in this study, we've traveled this road: Week one brought us to the idea of "stopping", as you will. Stopping in order to gain knowledge or an understanding. Martha had to "stop" so that she could get better acquainted with Jesus. Last week, we came to understand that knowledge is good, but wisdom is what makes it work. Comprehending something is one thing, but apprehending it is another. 

You know, I always used those two words interchangeably, but they are very different. When you apprehend something, you "grasp" it;  as in the sense of apprehending a criminal, you chase them down until they're in your hands. Wisdom causes us to apprehend the knowledge to make it applicable.

Now in week three, we come to the third step: Truth. Knowledge leads to  Wisdom and Wisdom leads to Truth. And what does Truth do? It sets us  Free, but that's next week!

What is Truth? That's the question of the ages. For centuries, it was a look in the eye, a firm handshake, and two witnesses and you were good to go. Now it's a  debate of what "is" is and a legal contract that's five pages long.  Ultimately, Truth is God. And the reverse is true also: God is Truth.  How else can that be?

Today,  we live in a world that is constantly challenging Truth. You name it, global warming, abortion, gay marriage, french fries. You have to be suspect about the issue. Everything has turned to this murky shade of gray with the purpose of fulfilling somebody else's so-called "truth."  As we better understand God, we better understand our own worldview because we see it through HIS eyes, not ours. Using the Holy Spirit of  God to guide us, through His Word, we are better able to discern Truth.  Jesus said that at the end of time, we would live in days such as ours.  We need Truth in our lives, don't we? 

Paul reminds his disciple, Timothy, "But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God — having a form of godliness but denying its power [modern day spirituality]. Have nothing to do with such people.  They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over gullible women [and men], who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth." 2 Timothy 3:1 - 7. We may need to look at this passage in greater depth at another time.

One of the truly GREAT things about the Bible is that you see and have noted what is excellence and what is putrid. God is not "ashamed" to examine and not gloss over "bad situations". He may have allowed them to happen, but it was always for a greater purpose. Isn't it funny, well maybe not all the time, that we often learn best from our worst times?  Whether it's a souffle or a relationship, the good always looks great when contrasted against the mediocre or the atrocious. 

And so it with the Bible. The Bible is replete with men and women who failed. And these aren't just the villains of the Bible, that includes the good guys and gals too. Last week we learned that consequences are one of life's teachers. There are good and bad consequences. Oftentimes, we can learn even MORE from a bad consequence or circumstance than a good one. We learn how the other person - or ourselves - fumbled or failed,  and then how they followed up. Was the sin or error repeated or was there repentance and turning to a better way or better thought process?

God is shown Glorious by the frailty of His creation. All of God's Truths are shown True when juxtaposed against man's limited understanding of virtually everything. Name the topic or subject. Science. Nature. Man's sexuality. Man's attitude toward his fellow man. Where man came from.  Where he's going. What would you expect? God created it all!

The  exciting part is, that God wants to share these Truths with us personally.  Would you prefer a friend who will tell you the truth all of the time or only when it is mutually beneficial? Do you want a friend and mentor who is wanting to guide you into all truth - that you can stake your life on - or one who you're not entirely sure of? If it's the latter,  then, as I've sometimes had to tell my children as they're finding and  developing friends, "you better find some new friends." Friends who will love you and care for you without any hidden agenda.

We Trust in God's Truth. We Trust in His Holy Word. We open our minds and hearts to Him and His  Word and readily feed from His bounteous smorgasbord of Truth. We don't eat greedily. But we eat a well-balanced diet of all of His Word. Not just the parts we understand or are familiar with, but we start reading  Isaiah again and just maybe this time, YOU will be ready for it. Maybe your "overly mature" and stoic attitude needs to be softened by some Psalms where you allow your heart to be rent to the Passions of God. 

God tells His story in the Truth of how He has worked in the lives of men and women throughout the ages. Yes, in the New Testament, we see God, in the Person of Jesus Christ, die as THE atoning sacrifice for the sins of all men for all time. But do we comprehend and apprehend the seriousness of that sacrifice? Do we apprehend how Holy Jesus' Passion and Crucifixion was. So maybe it's time to go back to Leviticus to read and learn how serious God was about the exacting nature of the Tabernacle and the blood sacrifices. There's no fooling around. God is  Holy and He expects nothing less. 

That's where God is calling us. He is calling us to really know and comprehend and apprehend His Holiness. And what He was willing to do to bring you and me back to a right relationship with Him. 

Whatever you need, God is waiting with the right diet for the right time of your life. God's Word isn't called the Bread of Life for nothing.

If you're still wondering about the man-eating plant in "Little Shop of  Horrors", the applicable point there is this: it's not entirely bad to ask someone to feed you, just make sure it's the right food - not people.  

I encourage you to "Dive" in! Pray, put on some good Christian music. Get some personal time with God speaking to you through His Word. There is a  lot of living to do when we are feeding ourselves and growing abundantly with God!