Fostering a relaxed, heart-based relationship with God

I like to glean from teachers in various streams of Christianity. One of the teachers I drop in on now and then is Arthur Burk, a student of the scriptures who leads a Christian think tank in California. One of his passions is helping people heal and grow into their God-created design. He just wrote an exceptionally life-giving article that I am reposting here.

Some of you are going to find healing in his words.

Blessings,
Gail Ruth

Redeeming Scheming by Arthur Burk

I have a friend who grew up playing the trumpet with skill and uncommon flair. By the time she was an adult, she was winning first and second place trophies in statewide competitions.

It wasn’t just about competition. She loved her trumpet and expressed herself through her music.

When she got saved, someone told her that if she really loved God she would give up her trumpet playing and offer it as a sacrifice to God.

So . . . she did. She got a doctorate in music and became the director of a church choir – until she got tired of the lack of fulfillment.

I have another friend who is the son of two artists. All of his growing up days, he planned to go to the finest school for his particular niche of art and spend his life doing what he loved doing.

When he got saved, someone told him that if he really loved God he would lay down his art and offer it as a sacrifice to God.

So . . . he did. He got a job as a youth leader at the church and went to Bible school to prepare for being in full time Christian ministry – until he got tired of the lack of fulfillment and left the ministry to go to art school.

Is this the God of the Bible? God the kill joy? God who designs us then won’t let us be us? God whose greatest gratification comes from our greatest pain? God who only accepts church work from us?

I fully understand that there are many things that we can love more than God, and this can become a problem. I know that God at times, out of His infinite love, will break our toys if we won’t give them up, in order to draw our hearts to Him.

But all of that overlooks the end of the story. As soon as God has our hearts, it is His delight to give us back the things we were designed (by Him) to do and be.

I love the story of Naomi. She appears to have been a wheeler dealer. A schemer. She had an angle on everything. The evidence is that her controlling ways were an obstacle to her relationship with God.

Because her scheming was a problem, God allowed her to crash and burn in Moab. When she made it back to Bethlehem, she was pretty contrite. She had come to the wrong conclusion.

She thought God was mad at her and that is why He bankrupted her, stripping her of capital leaving her powerless to leverage much of anything.

I take a very different view of things. I see a God who designed her to be a deal maker, to see the available options when others don’t see them and to weave together a stream of variables into a finished product.

I believe God thoroughly enjoyed watching her be herself – because that is what He made her to do.

He set her up in her home town with Ruth as a player in the scenario. Naomi appears to be too broken in health to glean in the fields, but Ruth was willing and able. However, Ruth did not know the Mosaic Law which said such gleaning was permissible to widows and the poor.

Guess who did? Yup. Naomi. So with no financial capital, Naomi leveraged the three things she had: the time of year (harvest time), a willing daughter-in-law and her knowledge of the culture and the Law.

God stepped in and breathed on Naomi’s fragile venture by placing Ruth in the right field to be seen by Boaz. That little bit of help from God was all Naomi needed. She was off and running and worked the deal all the way to the wedding and the grandkids.

God smiled as He watched Naomi being herself.

Can you see that He did not just redeem her? He redeemed her scheming. She was made to see opportunities others didn’t. Granted her pursuit of deals did lead her away from God for awhile. The redemption of her heart began when she went back home where God had placed her. But her redemption was not complete until her design was validated.

Let me press this point. God did not need her involvement. Allow me to rewrite the story of Ruth.

Naomi and Ruth arrive in town. Ruth goes to the store at the same time Boaz does (due to God’s control of timing). He sees Ruth, it is love at first sight, and off they go to make history. So easy for God.

I am convinced God took the long route so He could redeem Naomi’s scheming.

Did my two friends need to give up their trumpet and art? Possibly, if those things were defiantly held as obstacles to obeying God. But that is not the way I heard the story. The advice they got was preventative crushing, just to be sure that nothing they loved could possibly diminish their spiritual walk.

I don’t get it. God made a happy place for Adam and Eve. He is going to make a happy place for His people in the Millennial Kingdom. He is looking forward to some real happy people in heaven.

Who started this goofy theology that experiencing fulfillment by doing what God designed us to do was a sure fire way to ruin our relationship with Him? That is just plain weird, twisted, bizarre . . .

Arthur Burk
March 30, 2011

Arthur Burk Arthur Burk, Sapphire Leadership Group: http://www.theslg.com
Noble Subjects Blog: http://noblesubjects.com

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We have a magnificent and unfathomable God who is wrapped in impenetrable mystery.

As believers, we are called to have a love relationship with this infinite God, and that can be a tad daunting if we don’t understand how loving and good He is.

The good news is that Jesus, who came from His Father, revealed an inside look at Father God’s heart throughout His earthly ministry. And it’s a lovely picture He painted for us.

Jesus Reveals the Father

When Jesus’ disciples asked Him to show them the Father, Jesus answered, “If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father” (John 14:9).

Through Jesus, we too can see the Father as He truly is.

The revelation of the Father through Jesus has far more clarity than any previous revelation we have of Him in scripture (Luke 10:22).

Jesus clearly revealed to us what was previously cloaked in mystery. Jesus Himself said that “no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him” (Matthew 11:27).

“If You Have Seen Me…”

Since Jesus said that seeing Him was the same as seeing the Father, let’s look at Jesus to see who the Father is.

Jesus spoke of Himself as gentle and humble of heart (Matthew 11:29). In addition, scripture refers to Him as filled with “exultant joy and gladness” (Hebrews 1:9, Amplified Bible). He must have been loads of fun to be around. The common people were drawn to Him. And He happily associated with the most disreputable of society. He was called a “friend of sinners” (Matthew 11:19).

The tone of Jesus’ speech is revealed in Luke 4:18 when Jesus announced His mission from the pages of the Old Testament prophet Isaiah. He spoke of “preaching the gospel to the poor”. “Preaching the gospel” is a single word in the Greek, and is the same word that was used when the angels brought the “tidings of great joy” at Christ’s birth (Luke 2:10). It means to bring good news of any kind and to announce glad tidings.

Just imagine this exultantly joyful Jesus travelling around proclaiming glad tidings everywhere He went, and saying His message was from God His Father.

Jesus was completely approachable on earth, and He is still approachable today. We are told that He is our compassionate High Priest who can relate to us in our struggles (Hebrews 4:15). He is still modelling the Father to us.

Direct Teachings About the Father

Here are a few things the scriptures say regarding the Father:

• The hallmark of the Father’s character is love — pure, agape love (I John 4:8; I Corinthians 13:4-7).
• Jesus said His Father is kind even to evil and ungrateful people (Luke 6:35).
• Scripture says that “every good and perfect gift comes from the Father” (James 1:17). He is the Source of everything good.
• Scriptures explain that the Holy Spirit cries out from our hearts calling, “Daddy!”, which models the kind of relationship we are to have with the Father (Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:6).

How loving and good our Father God is! And Jesus, the only procreated offspring of His Father, told us we have the right to call His Father our Father. What a blessing!

My Blessing To You

May the revelation of Jesus further open your eyes and your heart to Father God. I bless your pursuit of a heart-based love relationship with your unfathomable heavenly Daddy.

Be blessed.
Gail Ruth

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