joy in developing and expressing ideas

There is such joy for me today as I publish this third post on the team devotional blog" http://www.whateverhesays.blogspot.com/. It is a challenge for me to think even more deeply about ideas that come to me, and develop them in ways that make sense and also touch and teach others, I hope. In this case, I took what I put in newjoysprings a few days ago, and worked with it some more. Here it is:

“Jesus, truth in each circumstance”.

This line is from a popular and powerful song by Brian Doerksen called “Hope of the Nations.” If you go to his website, http://www.briandoerksen.com/, you can read the story behind the song and see how much his composing of it came from God’s leading and in connection with events in history, most particularly Sept. 11th. It was written as a song of hope, and so it is.

Jesus, hope of the nations
Jesus, comfort for all who mourn
You are the source of heaven’s hope on earth

Jesus, light in the darkness
Jesus, truth in each circumstance
You are the source of heaven’s light on earth

In history, You lived and died,
You broke the chains, You rose to life

You are the hope, living in us
You are the Rock, in whom we trust
You are the light
Shining for all the world to see

You rose from the dead, conquering fear
Our Prince of Peace, drawing us near
Jesus our hope
Living for all who will receive
Lord we believe!

A real and living hope is based on Jesus and the reality of His life and death.

As I ponder the meaning behind this phrase that fascinates me most, “Jesus, truth in each circumstance”, the bottom line would be to say that Jesus is the source of truth in each circumstance, just as He is source of hope in those circumstances, and the source of light in the world, etc.

“For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible…all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. “(Colossians 1: 16-17)

Looking with the eyes of faith and discernment, with “spiritual eyes”, we can see circumstances from God’s perspective. We find the truth that Jesus reveals to us about those circumstances. Yes, I am sure this is true. But like so many words of scripture, when words are written with divine inspiration they can have many levels of meaning.

I cannot help but see more in these words. I see that the truth that we see in circumstances, even “human” truth, is God’s truth, a kind of incarnated truth, as Jesus is God incarnate. Jesus is truth: truth is Jesus. Can we say that the way we say that God is love, and those who dwell in love, dwell in God?. Can we say also that somehow those who dwell in truth, dwell in Jesus?

I appreciated teaching in my counselling course that helped us interface between psychology and theology, with the foundation being a belief that “all truth is God’s truth”. There are books written about this, and I won’t try to go into their arguments here or today. But I come with that conviction to this line in the song, as well as the sense deep within my spirit that there are many levels of truth in that line.

It seems to me that the truth we come to see in each circumstance is ultimately rooted in Jesus, and that coming to greater understanding of truth in every situation can lead us closer to Him. That would surely be God’s purpose, but of course the choice is ours.
If spiritual truth for us always has to be wrapped up in religious language then we may miss what God is trying to show us. I have found that my study of human truth by looking at reality through a counselling focused lens has brought me closer to God and made me more excited about His sovereignty and power.

Through this lens I speak of we can learn to see “what happens when what happens”. Instead of focusing on individual people and trying to figure them out in all their facets we can look at the spaces between them and others, really meaning we can look at the truth in their circumstances and through that come to greater understanding of the people themselves. As we contextualize and go bigger and bigger in our looking at situations and circumstances, we get more and more truth. Surely God is in that big context of truth.

This is just a taste of what is possible when we are open to all that God would like to show us. Let us always believe that Jesus, through the Holy Trinity creating the universe, author of all truth, can reveal truth in each and every circumstance to us.

May He do so for you, as you trust Him to lead and teach you today.