Dale Cresap's blog

Do you understand that your spiritual journey takes a lifetime? Don’t let this discourage you. It is the purpose of your life. Does knowing that this is a long term project make it easy for you to be complacent? This is not an appropriate response either. You need patience to not be discouraged by the length of the task. Yet you also need patience to remain fully involved and engaged with it. Patience is not only a lack of stress for things that take time. It also allows you to maintain a sense of urgency in spite of the long duration. Do these things appear to be in conflict? That is why patience is a fruit of the Spirit. 

You are made to look forward and not back. Your own anatomy teaches you this lesson. It is possible to walk backwards, but it is awkward and clumsy. In like manner you can look back over your shoulder, but this is uncomfortable especially if you do it very long. You are built to look in the direction of movement and you have modern secular proverbs about watching where you are going and keeping your eyes on the road. This is obvious in a physical sense. Do you see the spiritual parallel? No man having put his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the Kingdom of God, and run the race with your eyes on the prize of your high calling. 

Do you find that intelligence is a highly rated attribute among intelligent people? This is something that is valued by your culture as a whole, but I gave everyone their abilities, and did not make those with less intelligence to be inferior beings. Every positive quality, such as beauty, carries an inherent risk, such as vanity. Those with greater cognitive abilities are more likely to trust in them. Yet I am smarter than anyone, and even the most intelligent cannot generate divine wisdom on their own. The more willing you are to seek and trust me, the more access you will have to divine wisdom. The smarter you are the better you should be able to understand this. 

You do not live as a disembodied spirit. You have a spirit, but you also have a body, and I created both. In times past some schools of theology considered the body to be inherently evil, and so they saw a conflict between body and spirit. You live in a culture that celebrates the body and youth, so it admires bodies, but only those that are perfect by its standards. If your body doesn’t meet these standards is it a burden to you? Your embodied presence is more than a number on the bathroom scale. It is the earthly temple of the essence of your being, and of my Holy Spirit. Don’t let your culture rob you of this perspective. 

My word describes many encounters that I had with the Pharisees, and I had some sharp words for them. For whom were these written? Do you suppose any of them read these as scriptures after they were canonized? My word says that these things were written for you. The Pharisees represented the religious establishment in their own generation. Do you in yours? If so then you should be aware that the same dynamics can be in effect, and the same faults can ensnare those in similar positions. I make no accusations and only invite you to examine yourself in this matter as you do others. Only wear the shoe if it fits. 

Do you see your past as a burden to carry around? The longer you live the longer your history. Do you feel the weight of it as a hindrance to moving forward in life? It is true that you are shaped by the life you have lived so far. You may view this as a positive or a negative. If you like the place that this has brought you then rejoice and be grateful. If not, then consider my remark during the atonement that I make all things new. Your past doesn’t have to be the determiner of your future. In my economy of grace you can lay down the burden of your past and move forward into a bright transformed future. 

Did you find me in a church? This is a great place to find me, but it is also a place where you can hide from me. I live in my church, but I live everywhere. If you look for me in the course of a normal day you will find me present in the encounters you have while at work, shopping, and doing errands. Be fully aware and involved in these situations, recognizing my presence and responding the leading of my Spirit. This should make you more eager to attend church rather than less. When you meet with your fellow believers for worship it will be an opportunity to share the ways you encountered me outside and make sense of them. 

Paul said he knew how to be abased and how to abound. Do you? Most people have a strong preference for abounding, and assume that they would do it easily and well, and that being abased is a temporary condition to endure. But my word cautions the wealthy not to trust in riches when they increase and says that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of heaven. Paul was saying that the Kingdom of God was the central and primary concern, and that he could maintain his focus there whether he was rich or poor. Can you? 

Do you expect salvations to come in mass crusades and movements of God, or one at a time? Have you labored patiently for years and seen only a handful of results, and been discouraged at the magnitude of fields to be harvested? Did you think that the principle that he who is faithful with little will be given much applied only to money? It applies to everything, and money is the least of it. You can only be faithful with what you have available. Your focus should be on diligence and excellence in effort. Be the right person and do what you can in your current place, and you will be positioned to respond when the floodgates open. 

Is it the job of a teacher to present facts? Imparting information is one aspect of teaching, but only one. Students should be on a journey of learning and discovery, but shouldn’t this be true of everyone, including teachers? They should be in the process of learning themselves. Consider the teachers from your own experience that you enjoyed the most. Would they be better described as guides on the path of learning, even as they walk it themselves? You may not hold the title of teacher yourself, but you can still function as one even if you don’t know everything. Describe your own path into the mystery of the faith to those who will hear you.