Bob Hamp

20 Aug 2009

Limitless Ways

I have discovered that I don’t have much to say really, I just have lots of ways to say it. This week, I topped one hundred posts since I began “Thinking Differently”. Recently when I sit down to write, I have these great ideas, and then I begin to realize I have already written about them. It dawned on me, I only have a few things to say, but it seems to me that there are limitless ways to say them.

God is not complicated…He is just eternal. Eternal not just in duration, but in scope. God is One Thing. He is Love. Now how many ways can you say it? The simplicity of the One Thing can be overshadowed by all the ways to express it, and all the fanfare (and confusion) that surrounds it.

I only have a few things to say. But I plan to say them in endless ways the rest of my life, but here they are.

1. God and His Kingdom are greater and different than we think: If it is possible for us to “Get it” then He is limited and we are gods.

2. Our “Ways of Thinking” are a greater obstacle to knowing God than the content of our thinking.

3. The Invisible world functions in a different way than we expect. We must “Think differently” to interact with it. We must utilize different senses to take it in, and different thought processes to comprehend it.

4. Only God can: Well, you name it. this is a pretty big list. Only God can create, sustain, redeem, resurrect, empower, etc. Pretty much everything that real living is made of, comes from God. This whole “eternity and time” thing is really about God unfolding a story that expresses His nature. We just get in on a great deal.

5. Our Life is part of a much bigger picture: Really this is another way to say we must think differently. See, I am already out of “things” to say, and on to new ways to say them. Part of thinking differently is perspective. Look at your life from the outside. Now step back. Now step back. Now step back. Rinse, lather , repeat.

If I counted right, I have about four and a half things to say, but I plan to keep saying them in limitless WAYS.

16 Aug 2009

The Jesus Stuff

“So can you teach us how to do these things without all the Jesus stuff”?

A non-believing group made this request of a friend recently. He, like me, is in a helping profession. Knowing He is on staff at a christian church, this group was interested in help, just not in Jesus.

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The answer to this question poses a significant problem. But the question is important. Let me be the first to say that sometimes help offered; a glass of cold water, a meal, solid, sound advice, can be an expression of the heart of God. God helps people in need, and He does so without expectation of payment.

The real question I want to process has more to do with the underlying idea of the “Jesus stuff”. For years I was a “christian counselor”, I practiced in a town with a number of “christian businessmen”. The christian world is filled with those who would hold themselves up as “christian” whatevers.

I remember one of my psych professors saying that anyone who told you they were a “christian counselor” was actually neither. I thought that was rather a cynical position, however I also understand the thought. Let’s explore.

To be a christian professional these days typically means this: I hold to a certain set of values (at least publicly) and attend an organization, or set of organizations which also hold to and train people in these values. If I am a christian counselor, I not only hold to Judeo-christian values, but I may even use Biblical language in my counsel. Is it possible to do all of the above, and still not be be doing WJWD?

I regularly meet with people to discuss their search for an appropriate education in the counseling field. The first area of this discussion is the importance of realizing that “christian language” may not reflect a truly biblical worldview.

Jesus did not come to teach people to apply principles.

He did not come to improve our morals.

He did not come to help us be better people.

He did not come to show us how to apply God’s rules to our day to day lives.

Jesus approached the world with a simple message, and often not the one we have thought. Here it is…

The realm of Heaven, the home of all power and health, and rightness has come among men again. If you change the way you see, and what your attention is on, you can enter into this realm, and it can enter into you.

Where and when the realm of God has dominion, things are made right. Sickness goes away. Hearts are made more like God’s; generous, and considerate. Our position in the universe is restored to us and we are no longer under the rule of destructive forces.

Here is the dilemma. If we apply right principles, without the presence of God, we are simply living by our own sufficiency, the very thing Jesus came to free us from.

Applying principles while we hold God at arms length?

Doing the best we can without God?

These things sound suspiciously like the very thing Adam and Eve did right after their cosmic collapse.

The answer to the question, “can we teach people to do what we do without the Jesus stuff”, may be very telling as to whether or not we are actually applying Jesus ministry to our lives and professions, or whether we are simply doing the best we can without God. If we can teach people to do what we do without Jesus, then we may need to re-examine what we teach.

The things you do…do they:

…include the knowledge of, and the importance of interacting with an invisible realm?

…rely on the ultimate empowerment of God, or could you accomplish the same things without Him?

…recognize that the good that flows out of your life begins in God Himself and flows to you before flowing from you?

…connect people to the sufficiency of humanity, or to the insufficiency of man and the power of the cross to overcome man’s insufficiency?

…encourage people to do things for God, or to do things from God?

Are the principles you teach consistent with the unusual principles of the Kingdom (Dying is living, giving is receiving, serving is leading, the inner man is more important than the outward performance, weakness is strength, the least is the greatest) or are they consistent with the principles of the visible world (strength is strength, performance is the goal, achieve at all costs, strive, try harder…).

Before we sign people up for God’s Moral Improvement Plan, and profess that we are Christian Business-people, we must first closely examine the underlying belief system and worldview of the One upon whom we intend to build our approach.

Ultimately, If we can teach people to do what we do without the “Jesus Stuff” we cannot call it a “Christian” anything.

15 Aug 2009

5 Comments

Like a Wedding Feast

He couldn’t wait to see her. He loved her so, and had given His life for her, just so that this moment could happen. He knew her inside and out, and was deeply familiar with her great strengths (she didn’t think she had any) and her weaknesses Read more…

13 Aug 2009

Dream

All men dream but not all men dream equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recess of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible. ~ Thomas Edward Lawrence

All my life, I have had the same dreams over and over again. I often dream I can fly, and I frequently dream that I find money, which leads to finding more money. I don’t necessarily take these dreams literally, but nor do I take them lightly. I cannot help but think of the Sea Lion in John Eldredge’s amazing book, Journey of Desire. In short, this Sea Lion had long ago lost the sea, but regularly had dreams of the environment for which he was created. Twisitng, diving, swimming, only to wake again and find himself in the barren lands.

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A truth buried deep in his soul stirred his sleeping mind. His environment could not transform his deepest nature nor his deepest longings. And what of us?

I dream I can fly. Should I leap from tall buildings? I am not ready for this, but nor am I ready to surrender to the limitations I have seen thus far in my life. I am CERTAIN THERE IS MORE. More than I have experienced so far. I can sense it. Can’t you? Things that appear to be boundaries or limitations, I am not ready to accept these things as the final word. A part of me was made for dominion over these things. They shall not have dominion over me. Sickness, fear, shattered souls. I have seen God overcome these things in small measure, I am contending for MORE.

I dream again…

So I find money. Just a dollar. But because I look down, I notice a five or a ten nearby. As I move to pick them up, I notice a roll of bills. When I pick it up, they are large bills. The discovery keeps growing. Oddly, in my waking life, I am always looking for treasure. Ask my poor kids…was that a shiny thing on the side of the road? We are turning around. Ten candy wrappers for every one real find, But I am still looking.

Something in me says that treasure is all around us. Probably not cash, but when I find some I am certain that looking that direction will net me MORE. So perhaps keeping my eyes on the ground is the wrong direction to turn, but watching for treasure is not. Treasure in the hearts of people, treasure in the presence and the moves of God in daily life. If I find some, and look, I am sure that more is not far away. Much more.

So these are the dreams I have at night. But something about the deep call of these dreams leads me to dream BIG when I am awake.

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I still believe I can change the world. Well…not so much, “me” but the search for treasure and the failure to buy into the limitations. Something about a man who finds treasure in a field and is willing to sell everything he has to purchase it….

I still believe that you and I are citizens of a Kingdom whose ultimate completion is the transformation and restoration of all things. And I believe we are the conduit to usher that Kingdom into now.

Don’t go jumping of any cliffs, but don’t bow so quickly to gravity either. We might just be able to fly

Thanks, Laura Dubroc for the quote at the beginning of the Post.

“I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.”… Helen Keller.

13 Aug 2009

3 Comments

He looked up and saw Humans

He looked up and saw humans. They were familiar and unfamiliar all at once. They were bigger than Him. This He was not used to. He had seen everything that can be seen, but this perspective was new to Him. Read more…

11 Aug 2009

Why do we act differently?

“You Don’t drink, don’t smoke, what do you do…Subtle innuendos follow…it must be something inside”

Adam Ant, Goody Two Shoes, 1982

Should we do this? Should we not do that? What should be our motivation? That’s a stinkin’ lot of “should”.

I am thinking of three motives for behavior.

1. Someone else thinks I should: I do it out of respect, or obligation

2. I think I should: I respond out of my own sense of what “ought” to be

3. It is true about me: What is true in my heart is naturally transmitted through my actions

When I signed up for this Christianity thing, I did not sign up for any reason other than this: What was true about me was not working, I needed something else to be true about me. Because I was the thing I needed help with, I needed Someone Else to help.

Nothing personal, but, I didn’t sign up to help you, or anyone else. I signed up because I needed help. It’s been really helpful. Many of the things that were once true about me…have actually been changed. Being myself is not nearly as harmful to me and others as it once was.

Amazingly, the more “helped” I get, the more it seems to help others. The more I get changed on the inside, the more the things that come out of me seem to actually help people.

I suppose that to act right because I should, is better than acting in destructive ways…but if I spend the rest of my life relying on what I “should” do as my motive, my heart will grow more and more sick. I won’t tell you, becaue I “should” not be so sick. And I won’t be honest with myself because I “should” have changed by now. But I will keep doing what I should on the outside, while I die on the inside.

Apparently I still need help. Perhaps that is the point. I needed help to be someone different, and now I need help to be that new person in this moment. “Helped” is way better than “should”. You should try it.

11 Aug 2009

God is With Us…and it’s a good thing!

This is it. The center of the target. The Main Point. Possibly the most opposed truth in all the cosmos. God is WITH US. Now. Here. Where you are. Where you are going to be later. Where ever you go…there He is.

Isaiah the prophet said that Jesus would be named “Immanuel” which is to say God with us. God with us, God about to be with us, and God ALWAYS BEING with us. I hope this doesn’t scare you. Depending on who has told you about God, and what they have told you, you might not want God to be WITH YOU. Trust me. It’s a good thing.

The Bible says that in the life of Jesus we see an exact representation of God. You want to have lunch with Him? Invite Him to your wedding? (He can help your caterer!). You want to talk to Him when things aren’t going well? (He can help your therapist…)

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I fear our picture is that, since He is God-being-with-us, we better straighten up. He’s watching. Well, He is watching, but He likes you more than you think. Look at how He acted with normal humans in the Gospels. People who screwed up. People who suffered loss. People who were hurt and afraid. He came near them to bind up their broken hearts and heal their wounds. If you had a friend who did that stuff, you would want Him around all the time.

God is with us. Not only with us He is also for us. There is a reason we call it Good News.

I think it will affect our actions to know He is with us. Not just that we would not misbehave…

I think we would listen after we spoke as though He might respond…

I think we would expect Him to do things when we ask…

I think we would introduce people to Him, and not to a religious idea…

I think we would worry less…

I think we would be courageous…

I think we might even like ourselves more…hey…the God of the Universe is hanging out with you…maybe you’re the cool one now.

I think we would rest more…

Look Carefully…there He is.

10 Aug 2009

The Kingdom of God is like…

I have described the Kingdom as the presence and the power of God. The Kingdom is a concept defining God’s work, not the work of humans. So what about humans? Don’t we have some role in this relationship with God thing? Absolutely we do! So to help us further consider this parable: The Kingdom of God is like an oven.

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The oven is an environment of intense heat. Anything placed within the oven is changed by the heat. Cookie dough exerts no effort of its own to change itself; it must simply enter the oven. The heat will do what it does. Heat causes ice to become water, water to become steam, and batter to become brownies.

The atmosphere of the Kingdom, just like an oven, has a transforming power all of its own. As I have said previously, that power is life, love, peace, joy and rightness. If you dive in, then these forces will begin to change you. Try to live from your own resources, and these powers will have no effect on you. The Kingdom of God has the power to effect anything that enters its atmosphere. Our role? Enter in. Change our source. Surrender self-reliance and surrender to the immediate present rule of God. He will bake you. Change will come; but it will be His power, not your effort, that changes you.

BTW: Like the pics you see? You should see my amazing daughters work: Jillianhamp.com

9 Aug 2009

Influence…

I have been noticing lately a strange paradox in the pursuit of influence. I think embedded in this paradox is an important message.

When men and women begin to seek positions of influence, the desire is often sparked by a genuine desire to do good, or repair social ills. A real sense that from a position of influence I can make a difference. It is the process of gaining these positions that has caught my attention.

It seems that in many cases the process of gaining influence can alter or even distort the original message or messages that led the person to seek influence in the first place.

Our political system is a great example. A young politician gains popularity because of a message or a stance. The sphere of influence is increased because of popularity. Some will say, “with greater position comes more influence…more opportunity to do good…” The pursuit begins. Our young leader begins to shift his goal…subtly at first, but as the race heats up, the focus on “winning the race”. or “defeating the bad guy” replaces the original message. In some cases this can be a distraction, in other cases it can lead to compromise, or even corruption. To gain greater popular support, more people must be pleased. People pleasing is risky.

The process of gaining influence has undermined the reason for which influence was initially sought.

Consider the process Jesus pursued. He did not run for office. He did not build an organization. He rigidly avoided people-pleasing. What did He do? He went about doing good to all men. He proclaimed and demonstrated to indiviuals and small crowds that God had come back to the earth and made Himself available again. He opened a door for those who would voluntarily follow. Then He said “it is finished”.

Really?

Finished?

It seems we have so much to do. We must influence the masses. We must gain positions of influence. We must increase our visibility, and our positional authority.

Really?

What if…

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Today you loved someone unlovable.

This week you served someone who could do nothing for you

You begin to give time and resources to someone who has less than you, and told no one about it.

You begin to surrender your thoughts and motives in every moment to the present work of God in that moment

You began to give God honoring worshipful time when nobody could see

You allowed God to show you things about yourself you don’t want to see

You began to re-present God to those least likely to understand what you were doing…

You loved those who hate you

You honored those who have not earned it

If one of us did that, people would be influenced by that

If that one kept doing that, people might ask that one to be aleader

If they continued to influence others, soon people would begin to suggest that they run for office, or go into “professional ministry”

But what if we all did that? Just a thought.

8 Aug 2009

What does God see when we Suffer?

Okay, the height of the irritating things about God is how we see or don’t see His role and concern in the hard things of our lives. One of you asked about Job. I had to dig out this entry which has been hanging out in my saved drafts for awhile. It is long, but I fear one of the worst things we can do is to try handling these difficult things with easy answers. I tried to dig a bit, I hope it helps…

God seems more comfortable with our suffering than we do. I wish this were not so, it makes it hard for us to be comfortable with Him. At the least it seems He may not care. At the worst, we fear He takes a certain amount of sadistic joy in our pain. Now be certain, neither of these stances is consistent with the overall revelation of God, but face it, when you are in pain, and He seems OK with it, theological reason provides NO relief. It is human pain that causes many people to view God askew, and even judge Him. In some cases, it can cause people to turn away from Him. Sadly, this may even intensify their pain. Not because He punishes, but because pain increases proportionally to your distance from the Healer.

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So what is it He sees when we suffer? Fair warning, no answer to this question will ease human pain.

I think that two very important shifts may help us think a little more like God about human pain, in all of its forms.

First we must see suffering through the lens of eternity, not time.

Second, we must view suffering and even death from the perspective of both realms and not just the material world.

Our good friend, Dr. Caroline Leaf, tells us that we have the brain cell capacity for 3 million years of memory. So consider how you might view your current circumstances after, oh, say, 2.9 million years of living in paradise. Living in Paradise with access to full understanding. Our seventy to ninety years here, are like the snap of a finger. Such a sliver of all that we are made for. An important sliver, but a sliver nonetheless.

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While we are here, balanced precariously on top of this sliver, our eyes are blinded, our minds are shrouded and our hearts are darkened. At best we see a smudged reflection of all-that-is. Yet, because it is all we see, we operate as if we have the complete picture. Have you ever been angry with someone because of what you saw or heard, and carried that anger until you had the whole story? When you discover all the pieces of the story that you did not know, things make much more sense.

The emotion may not go away immediately, but, give it a few days. A few years. A few centuries. Once we see fully we will have a lot of time to re-orient.

Now for the big shift.

We must at least begin to see now, in the present, that God sees our pain and suffering differently.

I do not believe He is using our pain to teach us. But we can learn. I do not believe God is pleased in any way with our pain, but He is pleased with us.

The worst things that we as humans suffer are, death, suffering and injustices. all three of these things are contrary…in direct oppostion to…the Nature of God. Remember, God is the Spirit of Life, the Source and the Giver of all aliveness. He is the Comforter and the Righteous Judge. These things that we suffer, death, suffering and injustice are the polar opposite of His Nature on earth and in our lives.

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Here is the question we all face…as does He. Can His nature be eradicated in any given situation by the onslaught of such opposition?

In the face of hate and evil, can Love remain?

In the great Injustices of life, is there a scale that can ultimately balance it all?

When A Life ends on earth is the Spirit of Life defeated?

These are not just questions for God to answer. These are questions for us to answer. If we allow these great opponents of The Eternal One to consume our minds in the moments (or years) of our experience, then we answer one way. When in the middle of the storm, we can reserve a corner of our soul for ongoing connection to the Ultimate Outcome, we answer another way.

Job, the Bible character whose name is synonymous with Suffered Inustice, Loss, and Anguish faced the crisis of answering these questions in the immediacy of his circumstances. He began to allow his circumstances and his experience of them, to blot out the three million year, Universe-sized, Invisible realm. Is his window of time on earth capable of overwhelming the Truth of the Goodness of God? For a time it seemed it may…at least in his experience. No circumstance can change the truth about the True One. Circumstances can, however, change our understanding, our perception, our belief in the Truth about the True One. God graciously reminded Job that the picture was much larger that the one he could see.

When in human experience, an overwhelming circumstance proves incapable of overwhelming us, a great and Cosmic shift happens. One kingdom, the kingdom of the deceiver, loses ground. Not just in the moment but from that moment on. The Kingdom of God gains not just ground but a new beach head.

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In the book of Hebrews Chapter 11 we read a really irritating teaching. In summary, the writer says that those who believed and died the death of Martyrs receive a greater resurrection. You mean God rewards us for being willing to suffer? So, maybe He really does like our pain? Be careful…the war is against you and I believing the Truth about God, in the midst of our earthly experience.

The word here, translated “resurrection” carries many meanings. One of the meanings is “revelation”; a word describing the crossing over of God’s perception into our realm of experience.

While we see death as an end, God sees death as a transition. A “crossing-over”. So, I have to wonder, what door opens when the crossing over occurs? And is the crossing over a one-way transaction? Do we only lose our residents to that other realm, or does something come back into our realm when the door opens.

It is not uncommon to read of martyred missionaries, who appear to have made no headway in the culture where they labored. Years after their death, the Life of God breaks out in culture transforming ways.

When Steven (who seemed quite happy to make the crossing-over) was stoned to death, the Life of God, got ahold of a nearby murderer, and turned him into a life giving Apostle named Paul.

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Or my favorite story. At the moment of Jesus’ death, we read that the veil in the Temple, the Physical barrier between the two realms, tore in two, opening up access again to the Spirit of Life. But what if we keep reading? (Matthew 28)We will find that when this “crossing-over” happened, the bodies of the Saints which were in tombs in Jerusalem, came back to life (or did Life come back to them?) and walked around the city. This is what the eyes of men could see at the moment of the Greatest Injustice, and the Death of the Life-Giver. Dead bodies got up and walked.

What if God can see what we cannot in our moments of Suffering, Injustice and Death? What if He can see how the linkage between two realms opens up? What if He can see that we, as we cross over to heavenly realms, and keep our eyes focused on what little we can see of Him in those moments, open the door for the Forces of Heaven to be unleashed on the earth? He is not happy that we suffer. He is, however, overjoyed when Life overcomes death, and Justice overcomes Injustice. God, give us eyes to see.