Questions

Do I know you? Who does?

Let’s suppose we’ve met, you and I. And my contention is that I know you.

“You don’t know me.”

“You thought you knew me.”

But what about those songs that make the claim… “I know you” or to be more emphatic, “I know you better than you know yourself” ?

I’ve found myself praying for a particular person the last few weeks maybe, I can’t place a time that it began. And as I use that person for my muse this morning…

Oh, my, isn’t that telling?

To treat another person so abstractly.

But I’m aware of this… I didn’t choose her for my muse. From the history of me, I know it’s about my being an intercessor. And that part of that is that it’s the Holy Spirit’s work in me, as much as in her. I have two daughters. This one is a daughter of someone else. Precious and preserved.

She made comment the other day about herself… when I said I had nothing specific to say to her but only encouragement… she said that’s probably a good thing, because she doesn’t like advice, although even there, I feel afraid to suppose I could quote her.

I would like to talk with her sometime soon… and they’d all be questions.

I’ve read so much these last few years. At times I feel that I have few to talk to about it all. One topic in particular interests me:

Shoulds
Oughts

There’s a start…

But also, “Specific advice”. Who likes that? I’m not being rhetorical when I ask. Think about who likes advice, and who seeks advice.

A book I read very early on in my life was “Daring To Draw Near” a book by John White. He used the prayers of the bible as his text(s)

And the one thing of many I retain from that is that God initiates with us… and our response is prayer… he engages us… most often I find that I have felt guilt and accused myself of rebelliousness… when it actually might be God challenging me to prayer, intercessory prayer… is God pissed off with the church? I am… which church? The false one… the one that crowds out Christ and the Holy Spirit

The other part of the claim “to know” is to OWN a person. We’ve heard this term used ultra negative in its meaning. “I own you!” And “He got owned!”

I was fascinated when I read in “Towards a Psychology of Being” Abraham Maslow, about what he called a scoptophiliac

That “knowing” can unconsciously mean domination, mastery, control, and perhaps even contempt, can be seen also from the scoptophiliac, who can feel some sense of power over the naked women he peeps at, as if his eyes were an instrument of domination that he could use for raping. In this sense, most men are peeping Toms and stare boldly at women, undressing them with their eyes. The biblical use of the word “knowing” as identical with sexual “knowing” is another use of the metaphor.

“Towards a Psychology of Being”

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” ‭‭John‬ ‭1:5‬ ‭ESV

John 1:5

That word “overcome” is the English word that the ESV translators chose

Outline of Biblical Usage:

καταλαμβάνω

Transliteration: katalambano

1. to lay hold of
   1. to lay hold of so as to make one’s own, to obtain, attain to, to make one’s own, to take into one’s self, appropriate
   2. to seize upon, take possession of
      1. of evils overtaking one, of the last day overtaking the wicked with destruction, of a demon about to torment one
      2. in a good sense, of Christ by his holy power and influence laying hold of the human mind and will, in order to prompt and govern it
   3. to detect, catch
   4. to lay hold of with the mind
      1. to understand, perceive, learn, comprehend

“But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people”‬‬

John 2:24

What does that mean, “to entrust himself” to them?

Another question comes to mind as I muse along… Who owned who? Abraham and Isaac.

Isaac was the fulfilment of the promise God made to Abraham… and God asked Abraham to sacrifice him… up on that mountain, who owned who? And when they came down again, who owned who?

IDK when but… what I saw in that story is that God loved Abraham, jealously, there is a rotten connotation of the word “use”, it’s a terrible thing to find you ears realizing, “I got used” a means to an end…

My own story contains something about what I see today about the Abraham, Isaac, and mountain sacrifice story. When I was growing up or rather during my first marriage, LOL, I worked my way through different jobs. One of those jobs was working in a research unit of the health sciences centre in Winnipeg Manitoba. It was a “Day treatment” program of the child psychiatric ward. They were researching interventions with pervasive developmental disorder, which is what now a days is known as ASD – Autistic Spectrum Disorder. Years later, in my second marriage we came to have a child who would eventually be diagnosed with a exactly that same disorder. My 5th born son, Ashton. Incidentally, I told him the other day that I did not think of him as Autistic, I thought of him as Ashton, God’s unique creation with many things in common with Autism. He knew what I meant. And he thanked me. A label is a De-humanizing thing to put upon a person. Abraham Maslow is where I first read about the idea of regarding someone abstractly. you only see up to a certain point about a person, decide that you know them, categorize them rank them whether on a piece of paper or simply in your mind, and you cease to see them for who they truly are. As I pondered and mused about Ashton over the years I wondered at, in awe of God’s fore knowledge. He knew by his grace, and had me trained for the job I would do.

I couldn’t understand it until I realized that God had prepared Ashton’s FATHER for Ashton’s sake!

But God had a plan for me, also! And a plan for my son! They are intertwined and yet quite separate.

These are crucial questions for us as parents. We need to make our daughters aware of those boyz who would like to conquer them… and have them for a trophy on their wall, like a stuffed sheep’s head on the plate, with an apple in its mouth. We need to train our sons for equal treachery from girls who would “use” them… oh, do we? Isn’t that teaching them to FEAR? Why not model a good man for your daughters so that they recognize a snake, because he’s not like her Dad! Why not model a good Daddy to your sons so that know what footsteps to follow?

The Apostle Paul wrote, “Imitate me as I imitate Christ.” Model Christ himself and they will long for Christ! And recognize him in others! We are eternal beings! Bought with a price!

“Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.”

1 Corinthians 11:1

I saw sometime else just now… a discarded, crushed, extra large McDonalds coffee cup… stripped of its sticker, at the side of the road

I once upon a time saw a neat little pile of cigarette butts and shredded paper… no tobacco… just the husks

I saw the pile of corn husks, the hungry Red Ants, the twitching dog laying at their feet, and the rosey cheeked child on the old man’s lap, beside his shanty composed of discarded or stolen aluminum culverts… I was in Guatemala at the time, and this baby and her grandfather were on the NoMan’s land of the railway right-of-way, their home made out of bits and pieces of other things that he’d repurposed… but the thing that brought tears to my eyes is this. That child wasn’t paying the price for where they lived. She was warm, safe, clean and healthy, on God’s lap!

Women of the Bible to look into:

Hagar: she got “used” and the as discarded. But God went to her, after she’d left him a little ways off… left him to die. God went to her and what did HE say? Take a look at what God’s word to Abraham about it!

The daughters of Korah

Abigale

Estger

Ruth

Mary

Elizabeth

Sarah

Then there’s Bonhoeffer’s “we have no immediate access to one another, only in and through Christ” ponder that!