HOW GOD SPOKE TO ME TODAY October 10–16, 2022

Post on 24 October, 2022 by Dallin Malmgren

Octo­ber 10, 2022
#344 HOW GOD SPOKE TO ME TODAY
Sun­day, July 10, 2022 This might be the best advice on inter­per­son­al rela­tions that I’ve ever heard: “When you encounter anoth­er per­son, when you have deal­ings with any­one at all, it is as if a ques­tion is being put to you. So you must think, What is the Lord ask­ing of me in this moment, in this sit­u­a­tion? If you con­front insult or antag­o­nism, your first impulse will be to respond in kind. But if you think, as it were, This is an emis­sary sent from the Lord, and some ben­e­fit is intend­ed for me, first of all the to demon­strate my faith­ful­ness, the chance to show that I do in some small degree par­tic­i­pate in the grace that saved me, you are free to act oth­er­wise than as cir­cum­stances would dic­tate. You are free to act by your own lights. You are freed at the same time of the impulse to hate or resent that per­son. He would prob­a­bly laugh at the thought that the Lord sent him to you for your ben­e­fit (and his), but that is the per­fec­tion of the dis­guise, his igno­rance of it.” –from Gilead by Mar­i­lynne Robinson

Octo­ber 11, 2022
They’re over­seed­ing my course today and I’m over­seed­ing my mind…
#345 HOW GOD SPOKE TO ME TODAY
Sat­ur­day, July 9, 2022 There is a zen koan that has stayed with me since my youth: “If you want to be, act as if…” On the one hand, that seems like extreme hypocrisy–I should act hap­py when I am sad? And yet, why not? I often use it on the golf course. If I want to be calm, act as if… If I want to be pos­i­tive… If I want to be con­fi­dent… Think of apply­ing it to the promis­es of God: “I have told you these things so that you may have peace.” (John 16:33) …act as if! “The Lord makes firm the steps of the one who delights in Him..” (Psalm 37:23) …act as if! Best one yet: “The Lord Him­self goes before you and will be with you; He will nev­er leave you or for­sake you.” (Deuteron­o­my 31:8) …act as if! The wis­dom of the koan is not hypocritical–it’s trans­for­ma­tion­al! I am the cap­tain of my ship–I apply the promises.

Octo­ber 12, 2022
Tip of my hat to Bethany…
#346 HOW GOD SPOKE TO ME TODAY
Thurs­day, Sep­tem­ber 1, 2022 God is speak­ing to me through Willie again:
“There’s some­thing to be said for get­ting older
Dusty bot­tles pour a fin­er glass of wine
An old beat-up gui­tar just sounds better
And wis­dom only comes with time
I can spot mis­takes before they happen
Sep­a­rate the BS from the truth
I’m learnin’ when I need to keep my mouth shut
Like I could­n’t in my wild and wast­ed youth.”
–“Dusty Bottles”

Octo­ber 13, 2022
#347 HOW GOD SPOKE TO ME TODAY
Tues­day, Sep­tem­ber 6, 2022 “The king­dom of heav­en is at hand.” Now? Here? It’s easy for me to believe on my back porch on a beau­ti­ful evening. What about some­one who just lost her home in a for­est fire? It either is or it isn’t–it’s not a rel­a­tive state­ment. There’s a great mys­tery here–I can’t pre­tend to have solved it.

Octo­ber 14, 2022
#348 HOW GOD SPOKE TO ME TODAY
Mon­day, June 13, 2022 Inter­est­ing dis­cus­sion at my Stephen Min­istry zoom meet­ing tonight: Why did Mary Mag­da­lene and the two dis­ci­ples on the road to Emmaus not rec­og­nize Jesus by sight when He appeared to them? Per­haps because it was so unex­pect­ed or because God did­n’t open their eyes. My the­o­ry is that our phys­i­cal appear­ance is one of the most super­fi­cial aspects of our iden­ti­ty. Isn’t it iron­ic how in this world it is the one that is gen­er­al­ly weighed most heav­i­ly? Anoth­er proof that trans­for­ma­tion comes from the inside out.

Octo­ber 15, 2022
#349 HOW GOD SPOKE TO ME TODAY
Thurs­day, Sep­tem­ber 8, 2022. The African Queen (film) as metaphor: God has been show­ing me how com­plex mar­riage is. Not just mine–everybody’s! Think about how mis­fit Char­lie and Rose were when they got on the boat. Not mis­fit des­tiny-wise, but mis­fit in their indi­vid­ual thinking–we all start like that. So we see what the riv­er brings and how we han­dle it–it’s bril­liant. We are sup­posed to be learn­ing how to nav­i­gate the riv­er as we learn how to love each oth­er. It is not 50/50–it is 100/100 (con­trary to my comic–or maybe not).

Octo­ber 16, 2022
#350 HOW GOD SPOKE TO ME TODAY
Tues­day, August 23, 2022. I could spend days think­ing about this: “Once more, all reli­gious lan­guage is metaphor–I hope you know that. It’s the best we can do. We’re like blind peo­ple touch­ing the side of an ele­phant, describ­ing the tiny por­tion we feel with all the con­vic­tion we can muster.
But the Spir­it was always the hard­est to describe, and even Jesus acknowl­edges this: ‘The Spir­it blows where it will’ (John 3:8); don’t try to con­trol the Spir­it by say­ing where the Spir­it comes from, where the Spir­it goes, or who def­i­nite­ly “has” the Spir­it. God has many that the church­es do not have, and the church­es have many that God does not have.”
–from The Divine Dance by Richard Rohr

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