Hey guys! Please pray for Carlos and Jazmin. I met them last Saturday at a local coffee Shoppe… they wanted to know where o went to church! I was so happy to tell them!
They are from Mexico, and have lived in Tsawwassen for one year. They are married and maybe in their 40’s 🤔
Even as I was just beginning to speak with them in the queue waiting for our coffee and pastries, I had a witness in my spirit that they also were believers.
They had prior plans for last Sunday, but hope to come tomorrow.
I decided to try writing out the gospel according to John in Spanish.
Today was my first day doing it.
In verse 5… this is the Spanish equivalent of the NIV by the way. There is a word which is usually translated from Greek to English, as understood or comprehended.
1:5 καὶ τὸ φῶς ἐν τῇ σκοτίᾳ φαίνει καὶ ἡ σκοτία αὐτὸ οὐ κατέλαβεν
But I’ve also seen it translated “overcome it”
It’s on my heart for many years. The darkness doesn’t understand, it doesn’t comprehend, it doesn’t overcome THE LIGHT.
Here in Spanish it is translated EXTINGUIRLA
To extinguish it, ie) put it out, snuff it out
One of my life long agonies is that folks I meet do not understand me. They reject me. Early on I responded by changing “me” to suit “them” and I found myself with people I didn’t belong with. Whom I didn’t even like being around.
But as I have embraced Jesus Christ – the light – he’s lit me up!
Can we say, “The darkness in us does not understand the light?”
The darkness in me cannot extinguish the light in me.
Christ in me overcomes the “me” that is still in darkness.
But there is the “me” described in Galatians 2:20
So as I muse, I thought I’d share this with you. ❤️
I’m still musing, yes, to extinguish it to snuff it out. All comes to mind.
But none of their way is to stop listening, and what I mean is in a dismissive way to label it categorize it think of a butterfly collection you see row upon roll of butterflies that have been exposed to formaldehyde and they die, but they’re frozen in time they’re sorted labelled and a pin is pushed through their body and their pinned to a board under Glass to preserve their beauty.
This brought one of my all time favourite poetry to mind.
The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock.
There’s a line in there,
< And I have known the eyes already, known them all— The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase, And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin, When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall, Then how should I begin To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways? And how should I presume?>
If my effort to know you is to understand you in the evil sense, then I am seeking to dominate you, to overcome you, to “formulate you” to label you… and thereby cease to listen or be affected by you. I’ve dismissed you. Then in a sense I dispose of you, I have despised you, I despise you?
I have been guilty of trying to tell a person who are what they are, and I have thereby offended them. Is there a kind way to say that I do not understand you? I mean, I am still listening… you are alive! I have no butterfly net in my hand, nor ether in my pocket. I have binoculars maybe! I’m mobile! I watch where you go! I watch what you do, I come to know all I can about you… but why am I so obsessed with you 😅
So Vahid about a year ago told me this after only knowing me a short while, go and sit with Jesus as he meets with the woman at the well… he has something to tell you.>
He was referring to John 4
I felt the penetration of the light! I wondered! It was like saying, “God wants to see you in his office, now!”
But I trusted God, and I trusted his instrument, I willingly went under the knife, I submitted to the surgery!
I listened, I am still listening… but I think I have found what God had for me through Vahid that evening he said that.
It’s verse John 4:42
God knows, he understands! He comprehends you! He sorts you out! The darkness he confronts! Exodus 3:5! He saves you! Zechariah 3:1-2,
Then he saves you! Zechariah 3:3-5
But it is a rebirth! You have been given the “power to become” John 1:12
Look at Zechariah 3:6-10
This is each of us, but more importantly it is all us.
In Christ Jesus we move from being ME to being WE.
Exodus 25:22 and Ephesians 2:22
Look at the
If… then… in Zechariah 3:
Look at the word God spoke to Moses… I will meet you there… Moses had completed the things God had told him to do, but the obedience was to an end… it was a continuation
We have been saved for a reason! That reason is to join The Father in reaching his lost children, his own ones!
John 15….
And when we do, there is a moment when he says, “I’ll take it from here… “
That’s what John 4:42 means to me.
My job is to see the light in you, and to lead you to THE LIGHT and so… we’re back at the beginning of what I’ve been saying LOL
Now while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Festival, many people saw the signs he was performing and believed in his name. But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all people. He did not need any testimony about mankind, for he knew what was in each person.
This is another verse on my mind… what does it mean “…Jesus would not entrust himself to them…” ?
Another way to “cease from seeing” is to do a kinder, generous thing… or so it would seem.
Jesus was defined by, understood by, comprehended by … the Father.
In the beginning of John 2:3 Mary spoke – the mother of the child Jesus – his mother. She spoke to her son, her offspring? Her child?
He answered the lady, “woman” he called her!
I’ve always wondered about that one!
But the verse doesn’t end there. It ends with an allusion to – a pointing to THE FATHER … “my time has not yet come.”
In verse 5 the woman, Mary, submitted to her Lord.
Did Jesus gently put his mother in her place?
In marriage we leave and cleave?
It’s coming to mind that John’s gospel is and isn’t both/and
It’s the testimony of the disciple John.
I’m not teaching here, I’m yacking, I’m asking! God, and by extension anyone who’s braved the clicking of the link.
The paradigm though is leaving your father and mother, to follow God. To follow Christ Jesus.
Where is that? 🤔
Let the dead bury the dead… hate your bro’s and Sisters!
But Jesus heard the Father through that lady at the wedding! He obeyed God the Father. I’ve wept previously over this realization, when Jesus turned the water into wine, he set his first foot step on the road to the cross.
Sort it Out
1 Thessalonians 5: tells us to test every thing.
I resist those who enjoy my cooking and tell me to open a restaurant, I resist those who experience some thing of me… and proclaim my identity…
But I listen to hear if God is there somewhere in/on what is being said.
Don’t Try To Comprehend?
The thought is elusive to me. Of course I want to understand, comprehend, but I do not want to extinguish or limit God to my finite mind.
Acts 9 always comes to mind. Jesus’ conversation with Saul on the road to Damascus. “Arise, go into the city, and you will be told what to do.” So it’s more about the WHY not the WHAT he is saying. Listen, hear him clearly, then do it not waiting to know why.
So understanding itself is a word that needs that distinction.
extinguirla…
This light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not been able to extinguish it.
You enter a dark room, you turn on the light, and the darkness is no more. But it doesn’t work the other way, does it? You can’t turn on the dark!
All for now, check back for links and tweaks.
Running Down Vimy 