Lynn Green

Category: Spirituality

  • Conversations to Weed Your Garden

    Conversations to Weed Your Garden

    Photo ©Lisa Fotios from Pexel

     

    **This is a personal website and reflects my thoughts and convictions. It does not represent any official position held by Youth With A Mission.**

     

    Weeding our Love Garden

    (These are notes from a message I gave to our community at our weekly meeting. Much of the following material was gleaned from the book, Crucial Conversations, by Kerry Patterson.)

    Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples. (Jn 13:35)

    Just a few days earlier, James and John had asked for privilege and prominence above the others and when the 10 heard about it, they were very angry. (Mark 10:35-41)

    How did Jesus have faith for that?

    • He knew what depth of humility their failures on the following weekend would bring.
    • He knew the Holy Spirit would impart a new spirit of love.  (Watchmen)
    • He knew his example would prevail:  patience, kindness, rebuke, encouragement, forgiveness, kindness, the acts of a servant.

     I recently spent an entire day weeding the small allotment behind Hospitality.  I hadn’t pulled any weeds for about 6 weeks and it was over-run.

    Our relationships need very regular weeding.  How do we weed them??

                Acts of kindness

              Words of affection

              Most of all, honest conversations

    Some of those conversations are what could be called Crucial Conversations

    • Differences in opinions – or at least you think so.
    • Stakes are high
    • Emotions are likely to be strong

    When a situation arises that needs a crucial conversation, we often blow it before we even start:

    • We distance ourselves, avoid the other person, not engaging in any conversations with substance.
    • We let the emotion sweep us into confrontation without preparation.
    • We enter the conversation to let them know how we feel and make sure they know they have been wrong.  We plan to win an argument.

    We are sure our “story” is true and right.              

    A STORY is what I tell myself when I think I have seen facts.  People cannot escape filling in the blanks about what is going on, assuming motives in the other person, tending to create scapegoats, malevolent purposes etc.  AVOID holding on to such stories. Even the “facts” can appear differently from another person’s perspective.

    We are “dot connectors” and rarely will two people connect the dots the same, particularly when the issue gives rise to emotions.

    This is where judging comes in. 

    Keep reminding yourself that their story will almost certainly be different than yours and it might even be closer to reality.

     

    To have a successful crucial conversation, I MUST FIRST SEEK TO UNDERSTAND THEN TO BE UNDERSTOOD.

    I MUST BE VERY CAREFUL WHEN PEOPLE DISAGREE WITH ME OR APPEAR TO DISAPPROVE OF ME OR MY BEHAVIOUR.  Do not push harder, do not start exaggerating or making up “facts”; do not use force of personality or over-confident persuasion.

    I MUST BE VERY CAREFUL WHEN I THINK I AM THE ONLY PERSON WHO UNDERSTANDS.  WATCH OUT WHEN I THINK I AM THE DEFENDER OF TRUTH OR WHAT IS RIGHT. (I am probably just defending my ego.)  This will only create opposition.  Note when I am leaning forward, talking more forcefully, cutting others off etc…..

    WATCH OUT WHEN MY “STORY” THAT MAKES ME FEEL SELF-RIGHTEOUS OR SUPERIOR.  That is when I become unbearable and even dangerous to others.

    If the conversation becomes heated, back off and let the adrenaline drain away.  (Disagreement produces adrenaline to aid us in either fight or flight.  This an inescapable physical reality.) 

    I CAN HOLD ONTO MY BELIEF EVEN WHILE I SOFTEN MY APPROACH.

    Ask good questions.  Like, “How did you feel at that point? or, “Tell me how you see it.” or, “what would you like me to know?”

    Paraphrase their response back to them so they know they have been understood.

    Do your best to read their body language and engage them with yours. Be careful to display openness. For example, don’t lean back and fold your arms across your chest when they are speaking.

    You may need to prime the pump (eg. Do you feel we were unfair with you?  Do you feel that I don’t want you here?). 

    If the adrenalin is running, we might even need to discontinue that conversation and come back to it when emotions have died down.

    That is also the time when the second step of Matthew 18 might become necessary:  Anyone remember what that is? 

    vs. 16: If the initial one-on-one is unsuccessful, you take one or two witnesses and try again.  (Find a person or persons who are okay with both of you.)

    Note that this implies that you do not spread your dispute to others.  You go to the person.

    KEEP REMEMBERING THAT MY PATH IS NOT NECESSARILY MORE RIGHT THAN THEIRS.

    Are you aware of weeds in your love garden?  Do you need a crucial conversation, or maybe more than one?

  • Redirecting Our Hunger

    Redirecting Our Hunger

     

     

    **This is a personal website and reflects my thoughts and convictions. It does not represent any official position held by Youth With A Mission.**

     

    A few weeks ago, I said that I would post another of Dr Atef’s wonderful thoughts on prayer.   If you did not read those, then it would help if you know that he is Egyptian by birth and spent several decades as a “Celibate Priest” in Egypt.  Much of that time was spent in prayerful seclusion.  In recent years, the Lord directed him to relocate near to his sister in Arizona.  Then her husband died and Dr Atef’s assistance was of vital importance.  In the meantime, he was received into the Orthodox Church of North America and many men and women of all ages gathered round him to form a prayerful community.  It is my great privilege to see him from time to time.  I was there in December and he will pay a short visit to Highfield Oval, with two teaching sessions on Friday evening, March 31st, 2019.  The sessions will be open to guests.

    The title I have given this is a little misleading because the notes are about more than redirecting hunger, but they do show important insight into our longings and hunger.  For example:

    “The body and soul of the human being longs for sex and for being united with the other. The world makes him/her constantly hungry, never having enough of this greatest pleasure.”

    He then goes on to write about how that hunger after that which will never satisfy can actually be filled by fellowship with God.  These notes are worth meditating upon.

    Click on the link below to read the Dr. Atef notes Transforming Prayer.

    transforming prayer

  • A Rich and Satisfying New Year

    A Rich and Satisfying New Year

     

     

    **This is a personal website and reflects my thoughts and convictions. It does not represent any official position held by Youth With A Mission.**

     

    As we were approaching the end of 2018, someone asked me, “Have you set some goals for 2019?”  I couldn’t answer that question immediately because I hadn’t set any goals.  so I admitted that I had not.  That conversation made me wonder if I am becoming less focussed and is that a good thing or a bad thing?

    Many years ago, I learned that a goal is an objective I want to achieve with a time-frame for doing it.  Too often if we have no deadline, even if it is self-imposed, our best ideas don’t come to pass.  So I found that definition really helpful because it prodded me to be more faith-filled and proactive.  Without a time-frame we can let days, weeks, months and even years pass without taking the risks required to make an idea become reality.

    Why do I hesitate?

    So I asked myself, “Why am I hesitant to set goals for 2019?” I had to think about that for quite a while before I could decide whether I was becoming more lethargic or had a good reason for not having goals.  I know I have set goals before and that has been very helpful.  When I first felt that God had spoken to me to initiate and implement the Reconciliation Walk, I set a goal for getting underway in five years.  Actually that was pretty much set for me because when God spoke to me about it and I began to learn more about the Crusades, I recognised that the 900th anniversary of the First Crusade was coming up in five years.  That goal really helped me focus and get it done!

    Is it God-given?

    That goal was marked by a conviction that it was a given by revelation; that made it different than a self-determined goal.  In practice, it was a very big difference because I had real faith for it and as Hebrews 11:1 says, “…faith is the guarantee of things we can’t see.” There is another passage of scripture that says it another way: 1st John 4:14, 15: “And we are confident that he hears us whenever we ask anything that pleases him. And since we know he hears us when we make our requests, we also know that he will give us what we ask for.”

    Faith makes things happen

    I think that is why I have become less interested in setting goals for the New Year.  However, it shouldn’t stop me asking the Holy Spirit to tell me anything he wants me to know or do in 2019. I don’t really have the confidence—or perhaps it is presumption—to set goals for myself.  But I do desperately want to know what God wants to do with me and through me.  That way I can have genuine faith and faith makes things happen!

    The most wonderful news!

    As you and I look forward to 2019, there is so much uncertainty about the major events of the world.  I think about that quite a lot, but it is always in a bigger context.  Most of us have lived in a very long season of peace and our general prosperity is greater than at any time in history.  Day to day life is SO much better than it has been thus far in human history.

    As long as we invest our time and efforts—and humility—into our relationships with Jesus, with our family and with our friends and neighbours, this is a great time to be alive.

    The best news of all is what Jesus said in John 10:10.  I like the way the New Living Translation puts it, “My purpose for them [us] is to give them [us] a rich and satisfying life.

    We may or may not have goals, but we do have One Who Watches Over Us; One who is able to make everything work together for good.  And His purpose couldn’t be better!  I plan to go along with His plans for me.  Experience tells me that I am in for some surprises I could never plan. So, I guess that means I do have a goal. My goal is to actively, daily put myself in the hands of the One who wants my life to be rich and satisfying.  Beat that!

    Lynn Green.

  • Congregating in the Egyptian Desert

    Congregating in the Egyptian Desert

     

    **This is a personal website and reflects my thoughts and convictions. It does not represent any official position held by Youth With A Mission.**

    CONGREGATING IN THE EGYPTIAN DESERT

    Why would two to three thousand people from dozens of nations gather in the Western desert of Egypt (between Cairo and Alexandria) just to worship and pray?  There were no guest speakers, and the very long sessions were mostly prayer and worship.  In fact at one point the whole group simply sang the name of Jesus (sounds like “Yassu” in Arabic) for nearly an hour.  Why would over 300 Chinese risk coming to the event, knowing they are likely to be questioned by the Police and possibly punished on their return?  Why would people pay their own way, then sit on buses travelling under armed guard from Cairo to the desert and back each day – a journey that took at least three hours?

    Described that way, it sounds like torture to me — especially the idea of being in a tent in the desert with the temperature approaching 40 degrees C.  But it wasn’t!  Something very powerful happened, of which I can only give you a glimpse.  In fact trying to describe this event reminds me of the Apostle Paul’s phrase that we “see through a glass darkly”. 

    THE COMPLEMENTARY BODY

    Perhaps it helps to think firstly about who we are.  We are all created as individuals, and we differ immensely.  Some of us are very logical and concrete and linear in the way we think and live – I am one of those.  Others are deeply moved by symbolic gestures, visions and dreams or connections that remind them of scripture passages.  This kind of gathering tends to attract more of the people who get visions and dreams and see great significance in what sometimes looks like coincidences to me.  I need these people, and they need me.  Together we represent body, as Paul writes in I Corinthians 12, and we can safely discern what God is saying and doing – at least as much as He wants us to .  But, there will always be mysteries.

    ANCIENT “GODS” IN MODERN TIMES

    Let me back up a bit, though.  It didn’t start in the Western desert.  About ninety of us started in Aswan, in the region of Egypt where there were the most temples, obelisks and symbols of the ancient Egyptian gods.  These “gods” manifest themselves right through human history, and those who seek spiritual power often gravitate back to the symbols that appeared in Egypt about 5000 years ago.  I think especially of the sun god Ra.  Here are some obvious illustrations:  As I understand it, the family of the Japanese Emperor make a covenant with the sun god and that has a direct connection to their flag and national symbol of the rising sun. 

    That symbol appears in many other nations too, including Korea.  Freemasons and others have recognised the power in the symbols of ancient Egypt, so a couple of centuries ago they exported the obelisks from the Luxor region to the financial capitals of the world at that time.  These obelisks still stand in London, Rome (which has eight), Paris and New York; in fact about 25 nations have obelisks in their capital cities. These were all very important symbols of prosperity in the eyes of Freemasons, and so a huge amount of effort was put into dismantling, transporting and reassembling them all across the world.

    A SIGN TO US?

    To the modern mind symbols like that often don’t make immediate sense, and yet we see the significance of symbols throughout the Scriptures.  A central command of the Ten Commandments that God gave is that we should have no idols, and when you stop and think about the Biblical stories they are full of physical objects and acts that seemed to have direct spiritual power.  I am deeply convinced that some material objects represent a direct connection to spiritual power.  Interestingly, on the first day we began to worship in Aswan, with a number of Japanese believers present, a recently-erected 40 ton golden statue fell face downward in Okinawa.  It was exactly like the story of Dagon in Judges 16.  If you do a google search you can see a picture of it.  The statue was 38 metres high (125 feet).

    Here is what I think was going on both in Aswan and in the Western desert.  Firstly, Egypt is a spiritual “mother” nation, and is the source of historical spiritual power, but can also be a mother of nations for blessing.  We gathered in Egypt because we were convinced that God had said to do so, but gathering in Egypt alone does not give you power.  What gives power is when people come together across the usual social divides:  those can be national, racial, cultural, linguistic, economic or gender.  The list could go on and on, and has to include age.  I have been in many of these prayer and worship gatherings now, and the most notable characteristic of them is family affection.  When God’s people come together and bridge all the usual divides which cause conflict, then we fulfill the condition for exercising the authority that Paul describes in Ephesians 1 and elsewhere, when he says “we are seated with Christ … far above all principalities and powers”. 

    ARE WE UNDER OR OVER?

    We can get used to operating under the spiritual powers, and the divisions, suspicion, fear and even violence that they foster between different groups.  But the Body of Christ is called to oneness and interdependence across all these divides.  From that place we have the authority that the Bible describes. Sadly, we too rarely rise to that high calling of authority.

    So that is what we did in Egypt.  We let the Holy Spirit lead without a pre-planned agenda, and we ended up with a sense of God speaking into various nations, including China, Japan and Korea, but also with a day-long emphasis on the entire continent of Africa.

    I have to add one thing, otherwise these events could appear to have no direct application.  The Lord did bring a lot of encouragement to the Egyptians, who have experienced great discouragement and despondency, especially in the last decade or so. The Christians there are discriminated against, and the nation itself has experienced one huge setback after another. 

    So there were many words of encouragement to the Egyptians, but it was not only that.  On the second to last day, a soft-spoken Sudanese pastor stood to describe how much racial discrimination he had experienced at the hands of Egyptians, including the Christians.  It exposed another divide that God wanted us to close.  The Egyptian response was deep humility, worship, repentance, and asking forgiveness, not only of the Sudanese who were there but all the Africans, as they realised that they had discriminated on the basis of skin colour.

    Throughout the four days, we did not seek to address any of the spiritual forces, but we focussed on worshipping Jesus. As we did so some of these issues of division were dealt with indirectly and, I believe, the kingdom of darkness were dealt a mighty blow.

    The principalities and powers are forces of division, fear, hatred, and violence—all towards the end that the image of God would be eradicated from the earth.  However during a few days in the deserts of Egypt under a burning sun, we bridged  many of the divisions, and it seemed that God smiled—then He achieved some of His purposes all over the earth because a group of His people really did act as His body with Jesus as the Head.

    Lynn Green.