The Depth

We may think of life as an ocean. We all start out, like many fish hatchlings, in the shallows adjacent to the ocean. We are very vulnerable to the turbulence and predators. Many don’t survive. They are trapped by predators or lost in the turbulence. Many survive but never get beyond the shallow life of storms, predators, constant conflict, fears, uncertainties, trivialities, entertainment, envy, pride, ruthless competition, entitlements, discontent and meaninglessness. Those who sincerely and diligently seek wisdom discover a depth in the ocean where the surface turbulence cannot reach. They begin to merge with the Great Ones Who have lived in this depth and brought amazing goodness from it into the shallows. Their lives serve as an invitation into the depth, which, once discovered, makes all the shallow-life experiences not only survivable, but useful. No matter what is happening on the surface, one can sink down into the infinite depth and find a foundational Peace. In this place we realize that we are at one with the Source. Jesus lived and lives in this depth, and He traverses the currents of the shallows seeking those who can hear His voice, and escorting them into  freedom, peace and eternal life---the Depth.

Fear

Don’t resist fear. When you resist fear, you manifest the delusion that fear is real. Fear is something you [or some part of you] create/s because you know there is danger in the world. But your fear is limited in terms of the protection it provides from those dangers. At the end of that limit, fear becomes the problem. You don’t need it any more—if you have Love. Love overcomes everything---everything! Love overcame the Cross, and everything that led up to it. Love overcomes death!

When you stop resisting fear you do not become overwhelmed by it. It is your desperate resistance that causes you to feel overwhelmed. Stop resisting and you will see that the you that was resisting is now free. You become disengaged from your fear. The you that was resisting is something different from the fear that you were resisting---otherwise who or what would be resisting what? This you is now free, and can survey a new fearless horizon, which is now transformed because it is free from the dark lenses of fear through which it was previously viewed. There is a new clarity. The air is clean and pure in this place. You can hear the birds sing and see flowers and the unspeakable beauty of a child’s face. Your head is not filled with the smoke of all your problems. There is now infinite possibility.

“But”, one may ask, “ how can I know that I am truly safe in this fearless place? Is it wise to be fearless?” Yes, it is wise, with only one condition---and it is a very important one. Without this condition it would be wiser to retreat back into the fear unless and until you are able to meet it. And this is the condition: That your heart be filled with the pure Light of Christ’s Love. Then and only then are you safe from the darkness of this world, for it cannot penetrate that Light. Then and only then are you safe FOR the world. No harm can come through you. Now you are truly and completely free from fear.

“Perfect Love casts out fear.” [1 John 4:18].

Zach Post

OK, here goes: I’ll start with your last statement about counseling gays. The only ones I’ve counseled [the only ones who have come to me] are people who have as much reverence and trust in the Bible as I do. If I had told them that homosexuality is normal, OK, “just live the lifestyle”, they would have considered me heretical, paid me, and asked me to refer them to a truly “Christian counselor”. I would not have been able to help them deal with the load of conflict, alienation and guilt they were carrying. And if we pass laws that forbid counseling same-sex attracted folks who choose to live heterosexual or celibate lives, we will drive them into the non-professional world for the help they need. This would be a grave dis-service to them. I do not guide people into what lifestyle to choose: I help them cope with the difficulties they face in whatever lifestyle THEY choose, and this includes the homosexual lifestyle. I remind them that there are plenty of people who consider homosexuality a viable and functional lifestyle, it is no longer considered pathological in the psychology world, and they would be welcomed into those communities. I help them understand that the God THEY believe in does not reject, hate, or condemn them for something they cannot control, and that He wants them to be free from guilt and shame. Any counselor must be able to separate his own beliefs/biases from the counseling process; and this is a challenge for all counselors [not just Christians] that must be taken very seriously. I do not, as you insinuate, BTW, equate lifestyle with person. I know that the person is loved of God whatever lifestyle he chooses, and I am also commanded by my Lord to love all people. I say this with the humility of knowing that I love no one perfectly, not even my precious little 4 yo grandson Nolan. Loving people is something I always consider myself a beginner at. The Love of Christ is always an aspiration; never a final accomplishment. Without Grace, we would all be living in either guilt or denial. No one is getting it right in all arenas of life all the time. “All have sinned...” the Bible says. And it is true.

I think I can respond to the three scenarios you presented in a general way that basically covers all of them. The Christian faith/lifestyle is lived out differently [though motivated by the same Love] on the two sides of the issues we’re talking about here: serving customers of differing life orientations who come to our place of business, or being served by people of different beliefs that would give them pause in rendering the service. If I imagine Lynn and I going into a shop for a wedding cake, and the owners did not want to serve us because they considered us to be “infidels” or “breeders” [an interesting term that seems to be a pejorative term for heterosexuals, and I wonder where it originated {not you I hope}]or obese, etc. We would hastily and politely depart the store. I would help Lynn deal with whatever hurt feelings or indignation she might have and remind her that we are who God sees; not what people see. We would pray for those people because we would know as Christ on the Cross, “They know not what they do.” This would be as sincere a prayer as we could make it—not a subtle exercise in passive-aggressive indignation or self-righteousness. We would ask God to help us get clear of any smoldering resentment or feelings of inferiority. If any Constitutional rights were being violated, we may, for the sake of others, choose to take some action. But if they were practicing within the realm of their Constitutional rights, that would be the end of it for us and we would look elsewhere or bake our own cake. If we were on the other side of this issue, we owned the bakery, and a same-sex couple asked us to serve them with a cake, we would pray for guidance. It could be that the Lord would lead us to simply serve them, reminding us that we are not responsible for their choices, and that He loves them as much as He loves us, though, Scripturally, He does not ordain their lifestyle, any more, for instance than He ordains adulterous lifestyles, etc. [I pause here because this is where the catch is for most of us on this issue. The Bible is not ambivalent about homosexuality. We have got to deal with that fact in a civil and compassionate manner. Jesus has taken us beyond condemnation of sinners [“Let him who is without sin cast the first stone”] but He said He did not come to “destroy the law but to fulfill it”. His Love fulfills the law/Scripture. I do not believe that I have the authority to ordain any activities that the Bible forbids. I feel that I would be violating the God Who created me and holds me accountable for what I generate, encourage, support, etc. in this world; and that that would follow me into the afterlife. I also know, beyond any doubt, that I must not hate any person—in fact I must love all people with the Love of Christ, no matter their chosen activities. This includes pedophiles, murderers, sociopaths, etc. I counseled a pedophile—I think he’s still in jail—and I have a jasmine vine growing in my yard that he gave me in appreciation for the ministry God rendered through me. The oppression that Christians are reacting to [something you label as “utter nonsense”] is that they are feeling pressured into asserting something that is contrary to the Bible—that homosexual liaisons are righteous, good, holy, and on equal par with man-woman relations/marriages, etc. And laws are being enacted that have the effect of forcing Christians to assent to this belief in ways that violate their true and sincere religious faith. This is where, as you indicated above, your fist meets my nose. This is going to be the cutting edge frontier that we must safely negotiate: How do we allow homosexuals to be homosexual; and Christians to be Christian in light of what the Bible says about homosexuality. It seems that some folks in both realms will not stop until the other is subdued by laws or converted by coercion. Neither path is good. In some sense, we’ve got to live and let live, without imposing laws upon each other that forbid us to be who we truly are. I know that, from the Christian standpoint, laws that violate faith will generate civil disobedience. But it will not be motivated by hatred or fear if it is done in the Spirit of its original Progenitor. And if it is not done in that Spirit, it can no longer be called “Christian”. This is why your earlier term “Christian hatred” is a literal oxymoron. The only thing a Christian is allowed to hate is the evil that is not good for anyone in the human family. “We war not against flesh and blood...”. Jesus hated nor hates anyone. The primary concern I have in all this is that we not, culturally speaking, throw out the baby [the vital, life-enhancing power of the Christian faith] with the bath water [the distorted ways that some folks have expressed that faith] in our efforts to gain personal “freedoms” or in angry protest against feeling suppressed by something that, in its truest manifestation is the source of all true freedom. We all lose if this happens. I hope you and others will recognize that the God of the Christian faith is the bedrock of this democracy in which civil injustices have been and are continuing to be addressed. Any rational and honest indepth study of American history [the speeches, letters, enactments, etc. of our Founders] will attest to this, despite the fact that shallow conclusions to the contrary that appease those who don’t like Christianity for some reason and who are not willing to dig deeply enough into the truth of the matter are epithetically tossed around as if they were consummate truth [“deists”]. We have shed our own blood to end slavery. Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr. were Christians! Geo. Washington was a Christian. No Christian is a perfect person, of course, but at least you can hold Christians accountable to the commands of their Lord. And I challenge you to find a single teaching of Jesus that is harmful to any human. We should not be trying to dissuade Christians from being Christians; we should be trying to get them to be MORE Christian, whether we are or not. I firmly believe that there is serious danger lurking in the wings if we do not. Someone has likened the fires of Christianity burning in our culture to the fires of the ancient cavemen, keeping the beasts of prey at bay. If the fire is neglected and dies down, the beasts move in to “steal, kill and destroy” as Jesus said. The Christianity that you seem to disdain is primarily what has made it possible for you to live as you please. Christ has never been in the business of suppressing freedom; He came, as He said, to “set the captives free and to set at liberty those who are oppressed”. To relegate Christianity into an insulated sector of society will expose the remainder of society to a darkness that can be invaded by forces that have made the 20^th Century the bloodiest in all of history. More 100 million humans were killed by humans in that Century. Take a moment to meditate upon that. And this was done in communist, athiest or Muslim environments. Jesus commands us to LOVE our enemies. He would not allow his disciples to use the sword to defend Him against those who came after Him at night with false accusations and dragged Him to the Cross. We desperately need this influence in our world. Please, I beg you, don’t disparage or discourage this influence. It is not Jesus Who has hurt or suppressed you. He is not your enemy. Nor are any of those who sincerely follow Him. 
Thanks again Zach for stimulating all this---something I know you didn’t intend. [Perhaps God was using you for this purpose.] I pray that you and all your loved ones are prospering in all ways. I sensed in your last post what I also feel, maybe we have taken this to its current limit. I will, at your request, respond to any further posts if you desire. Otherwise I pray this ends with us as true friends who wish only good for each other. That is certainly true from my standpoint. Blessings.