Mike teaches us how to distinguish between the voice of the enemy and the voice of the Lord when we enter into the spiritual exercise of a consultation.
Transcript
This document is a direct transcript of an audio recording, and may contain transcription errors and other minor edits for the sake of clarity.
MIKE: Before I begin, one thing I wanted to let you know is that the whole time we’ve been here, the South Bend branch—somebody in the South Bend branch—has been praying for us. We—I sent out a request to the branch to intercede for us together, to participate with us, and there’s been somebody praying. We might have missed an hour or two in the middle of the night [some laughter]. But, only that. Somebody anonymous was praying for us from three o’clock to four o’clock this morning, praying that the Lord would be present, that his work would be done, that we would be able to do all the things that the Lord is calling us to do. So, know that we are being supported by the prayers of our brothers and sisters, please.
This is about dialoguing. We began a branch-wide consultation in South Bend last fall, and this talk comes in part from our experience in the South Bend consultation. That consultation is not this consultation, but the kinds of conversation and participation work which are at the heart of the consultation are the same. I’ll try to keep any mention of the details [Mike chuckles] of the local consultation to the minimum necessary to give context to the examples, but mostly, I want to talk about the conversations that we’re having and will be having together.
The consultation in South Bend is about how we want to live together, as we emerge from almost two years of dealing with COVID. The question became, Hey, what are we going to do? How are we going to do this? How will we emerge? We’re different than we were before we went in. And there’s no such thing as a road back to the good old days, right? That’s a cul-de-sac that ends in falsehood. So, what are we going to do? We asked each other, and we responded.
One of the responses that we received we found very, very helpful. And it’s an example of exercising a gift for the common good. The response read:
Now for the general principles. These are just my own thoughts. First I thought of the saying, attributed to some radicals and Marxists: “Never let a crisis go to waste.” [Laughter.] There is some truth in this, but not in the way they mean it. COVID has presented a crisis for the POP, as well as everyone else in the world. This crisis has exposed some of our weaknesses, and some needs and desires of members that were not seen so much before COVID. We should examine and earnestly desire to understand and respond to the needs and weaknesses exposed by this crisis. But we should not, as Marxists do, let the crisis be manipulated for any preconceived agendas or ideologies. Rather, we should listen to everyone and seek to respond in love as the Lord leads.
She continued,
Second, I thought we could make an analogy with some principles used in the Second Vatican Council in the Catholic Church. I used to work for a theological journal founded by some theologians trying to develop an authentic implementation of Vatican II. One of our slogans was “Renewal rooted in tradition.” I think as a community, we should look to our traditions, to our founding documents, and the wisdom of long-time members, to understand our roots, even as we try to move into a new time and situation. Two of the principles guiding Vatican II were ressourcement (which is French for “back to the sources”) and aggiornamento (which is Italian for “updating”). I think that the community should try to keep both of these principles in mind as they apply to our own situation: be mindful of our sources and roots, as we try to move forward into this new time and new needs.
We saw in this response to us a word from the Lord, and decided to conduct a community-wide consultation for the purposes of “back to the sources” and “updating.”
To the conversations themselves. We’re engaged in a discernment process as a people of God. I’m going to say that again. We’re engaged in a discernment process as a people of God. At every turn, we must be seeking the Lord: begging him for his guidance, begging him that he will make his will clear. Fasting, praying, pleading with him: “What, Lord, would you like us to be in the future?” The consultation, the one we’re talking about at this gathering, is not a referendum. It’s not a survey. It’s not a poll. At various times it may look like some of those things, but we’re engaged in a discernment process as a people of God.
Not every group conversation is a discernment. Right? I worked for a long time in the corporate world, and I can remember a time when the managers were called together by the director to talk about what kind of celebration we should put on for the department, because the department had had this incredible year in the middle of terrible times for the company. So, we’d had this banner season. And we’d thought there’d be something of a discussion. But really, we were called in to have the boss explain this idea to us and be given the chance to agree. [Laughter.] We were free to have opinions, as long as we agreed [more laughter]. And there wasn’t much discussion at all. This . . . is not that.
This is a spiritual exercise. This is a spiritual exercise, so be aware: a group of people of good will seeking to make progress in the Lord will be opposed by the enemy.
This January, the campus divisions across the People of Praise held a consultation in Evansville to discuss together how to have more life in common. One of the participants of that consultation told the following story:
The consultation began on Thursday night, and we spent all of Thursday evening and Friday talking together and listening to each other. We began on Saturday morning with a lot of enthusiasm. With only one more day together, we were eager to distill some of the most important things from our previous day and a half of conversation, and figure out where we could go from here, and how we could continue what we’d started.
But quickly, the conversation became mired down. It felt like everyone was talking past each other, like suddenly we were no longer understanding each other, and no longer making any headway. I could see frustration rising in myself and in the room, and personally, I wondered if we would ever make progress. This confusion surprised us, like an outside force that had obstructed our conversation.
After an hour or so of this, we decided to take a short break. During that break, a few of us decided to pray against the work of the enemy, and in particular, a spirit of confusion. Independently, a few others had gathered together and done the same. When we returned after the break, it was a completely different conversation. The confusion was gone, and we were able to engage each other fruitfully again. In fact, some of the best moments of our time together came shortly thereafter.
We are engaged in a spiritual exercise. We will need to distinguish between the voices of the spirits. Let me say that again: this is not just a social exercise or even a good debate. This is a spiritual exercise, and we need to distinguish between the voices of the spirits. They have distinguishing characteristics. The voices of the enemy and our Lord are distinguishable, because they speak differently. Their voices affect us and reach us in different ways, and the same tools that we use to discern the voice of the Lord and the voice of the enemy personally in our own lives also apply to a group.
I’ve summarized this in a handout, which I think are [sic] sitting on the tables. But hang on to them and look at them later. [Laughter.]
For a person moving towards God, the action of the Holy Spirit is delicate, gentle, delightful, like a drop of water penetrating a sponge. The action of the evil spirit on such a person, a person moving toward the Lord, is violent, noisy, and disturbing, like a drop of water falling on a stone. For those moving away from God, the action of the spirits is just the reverse.
Here, I’ll describe some ways to recognize the voice of the Lord and the enemy in a person moving closer to God. The voice of the enemy is often strident, insistent, sometimes demanding; sometimes even monotonously demanding.
MAN’S VOICE: [inaudible, apparently asking Mike to repeat himself]
MIKE: The voice of the enemy is often strident, insistent, sometimes demanding; sometimes even monotonously—these are in the handout—sometimes even monotonously demanding.
The voice of the enemy restricts your freedom. The voice of the enemy does not expand your heart as you’re striving to grow in love and service of the Lord.
During a talk in this very room some time ago, I heard, “Have you ever been in a relationship with somebody who is very controlling? Who just needs to be in charge all the time, sets the agenda? Who’s just got it all?” Everyone nodded their heads (“Oh, yeah”). The speaker asked, “Did you experience that as love?” And everybody said, “No!” And he replied, “Then it is not in the character of the Spirit of God, and it cannot be the voice of our Father.”
The voice of the enemy may try to distract us from the task at hand, by tempting us to focus on our current frustrations, or a fear of the future, or even a sadness from the past. “What are we doing?” “They never listen to me anyway!” “Why are we doing this?”
The Spirit of God never imposes his will.
Our Lord speaks to us, to our real situation, the actual present circumstances, and helps us move forward. The Lord gives us hope, appeals to our desire to do good, to help, and to serve. The enemy closes me in on myself, and makes me rigid and intolerant, rather than freeing me and opening me up to the present and the future. The enemy’s voice traps me and tempts me in my isolation to resignation and withdrawal.
So if you find yourself being closed in on by fear or your sadness or anger, that is not the Lord! That is not the voice of the Lord. Tell Satan [Mike speaks loudly and strongly]: “Begone!”
The enemy is a weakling. He is a weakling before a show of strength, and when we cast him out in Jesus’ name, he will flee. His action and the action of the Holy Spirit are real, and as we discern, we are discerning not just our reactions or emotions, but the reality before us.
I heard a story about a prayer group, I think in the early days of the renewal, which had a desire to become a community, a committed community. The group had begun having conversations about community, and in fact, had been trying to work towards that for several years. But it never felt like they were able to make any progress. Stability was a problem, with people in and out, and despite all their efforts towards and conversations about becoming a community, it simply wasn’t working.
One day, Don Basham (who, by the way, has written a book called Deliver Us from Evil, which I recommend reading)—Don Basham and another fellow who had experience with discernment of spirits came to visit this group. At the request of some of the leaders, Don and his friend prayed against the work of the enemy, and discerned a spirit of confusion. They prayed together against a spirit of confusion and cast it out. That prayer was a turning point for the prayer group, which did, not too long afterwards, become a community.
As this consultation unfolds, be on guard against the work and voice of the enemy. Be vigilant for, and responsive to, the action of the Holy Spirit.
When the South Bend branch coordinators were editing the list of themes that had come out of our consultation—there were 11 of them, and—we were working hard. We were editing as a group (which is always a dangerous thing)—but, we worked through 10 of the 11. But we could not settle the last one. We were working hard together, and the spirit in the room was very good, but we were stuck! We had started at six o’clock in the evening with dinner, and it was 11:45. And we had to stop. I believe I said to the guys, “Your wives are just gonna hate me!” But we had to finish, so we agreed to meet again.
The second time, which was just a couple of days later, early in the conversation, someone—and I honestly don’t remember who—proposed a new way to word the theme. By the way, the content of this theme had to do with addressing roles of women in the community. So it was important to us to make sure we understood what we were saying and say it together. I honestly don’t remember who spoke the words. But, suddenly, we were off to the races. We worked on it for a while longer, but very shortly it was done, and we had unity about it. Sometimes, you just gotta keep at it!
Actually, something else happened at that very same meeting, the last time we got together to work on the themes. Beforehand, we were praying together, and singing. And, I felt like the Lord said to me: “Strap up!” By which I understood him to mean, “Get your equipment on.” It’s what the football coach used to say to us: Put your chin strap on. “Strap up!” It’s time to get—it’s time to start hitting. [Mike laughs.]
And if you remember the movie The Ten Commandments, where Yul Brynner is the Pharaoh and he’s about to chase after Moses and the Israelites, and he calls for his armor. . . . And he stands in the middle of the screen, he puts his arms up, and they come and they put his armor on him. So, this is the vision I’ve got, right? The Lord—in my mind’s eye, the Lord says, “Strap up, and put on your armor!”
And then, I felt like the Lord said, “Your armor . . . is mirth. Put on the armor of good humor.” We’ve got to be able to do this in the right, light spirit. We’ve got to be able to laugh. We’ve gotta be able to say, “Wow! I had no idea you thought that! [Mike chuckles as he says this.] Can–can you say some more? I don’t get it, but let’s talk!”
As described in Nehemiah, when the Israelites returned to a ravaged Jerusalem, and they sang as they worked on [the] rebuilding of the wall, “The joy of the Lord is our strength!”
We have to be able to talk about our disagreements, or we’ll never make any progress in becoming one mind and one heart! If we keep our disagreements to ourselves, they remain secret, and we remain stuck.
Now, if you’re like me, when we talk about disagreements, you sometimes find yourself moving from explaining what you think—very lucidly—to defending your position, very . . . resolutely, to taking offense at the dispute, and getting more and more rigid in your defense. Rigidity, by the way, is not a gift of the Spirit! [Laughter.] I’ve looked. It’s not in any of the gifts—in any of the lists of the gifts of the Spirit. It just doesn’t occur!
So, when I start to get a little hot under the collar [Mike chuckles], it’s time to stop, and back up. Rigidity, in your mind and in your heart and in your argument, is a sign of the enemy at work. No matter what we’re talking about.
It’s important to understand the effect of taking a rigid stand with regard to one another. The temptation will be to state my view increasingly forcefully—and then, withdraw from the conversation, having had my say. When in this state, I will separate at least my mind and heart from the brothers and sisters with whom I’m engaged. Its final effect will be distancing from the body to which I belong.
Rigidity leads to isolation: closing us in, in our own interests; closing us in, in our own viewpoints; and worse. It’s easy, then, to justify the separation, because, well, “They’re wrong!” and because “I have to defend the truth!” As though the veracity of what I’m defending depends upon my defense of it. It leads us to suspect one another of bad motives and bad thoughts, which, in turn, increases our withdrawal, by means of suspicion and supposition, that turns us pretty quickly into beleaguered, complaining selves who disdain one another, believing that we alone know the truth.
This is the danger of an isolated conscience. And we may at times have to help one another with this. The truth, or plan, that I am so determinedly defending . . . doesn’t depend on me. But, loving my brothers and sisters, listening to them, getting to know them more deeply, that does depend on me.
People are more precious than ideas.
Loving my brothers and sisters—listening respectfully, learning about them, coming to know them better, learning why they think what they think, and looking at things from their perspective—is more important than convincing them that you are right, and they are wrong. That polarized right/wrong position leaves no room for the Spirit of God to move and resolve our disagreement with a new and unforeseen path forward.
So, what happens when we find we’ve gotten our backs up because something dear is being challenged, or because something I feel deeply is being treated disrespectfully, or maybe because my concerns are just being dismissed?
When you are in such a position, it’s time to stop, and look at your own conduct: your own conduct, your own attitude, and your own understanding. You may be tempted to justify yourself and accuse the folks that you are talking to of wrong thinking, of ignorance, of wrongdoing, or something bad. That’s exactly when it’s time to accuse yourself.
The antidote to rigidity is humility. I’m not saying, Change your mind about what you hold to be true. I am saying, Look at your heart and your behavior. Accuse yourself not for the substance of the disagreement, but for the tension in the situation. What about this has me so worked up? Why are my defenses so high? Am I being threatened? Why am I behaving like this? Is this how I want to speak to my brothers and sisters in Christ, that brother for whom Christ died? No!
Now is the time to look and to speak so as to follow; to allow the folks I’m with to have the greatest degree of freedom to say what they’re thinking; and to listen to them closely.
As Chris mentioned in her talk, I need to listen closely enough to your point—with which I may completely disagree—so that I can make your argument for you. I don’t have to agree with it to understand it all. If I can’t put it together and understand it enough to make your argument for you, then I don’t know it well enough yet. Now, if you can’t piece it all together, you might want to continue the discussion.
In any given situation, it might not be the time to continue the discussion. You might want to table it, and come back to it later. Sometimes, it’s hard to turn around our passions quickly, and
. . . you might want to “put a pin in it,” settle down, and come back to it later. I don’t know about you, but I can’t just stop from being rigid and being mad right now. Sometimes, I need some space. So—but don’t give it up.
A sign that the Spirit is at work is that it always preserves the legitimate plurality of differing points of view, offering as-yet-unknown paths forward, which just might reconcile the positions, keeping the dignity intact of everybody who’s involved.
[Inaudible comment from audience—possibly a request to repeat]
A sign that the Spirit is at work is that it always preserves the legitimate plurality of differing points of view, offering as-yet-unknown paths forward. . . .
[Another inaudible comment from audience—possibly another request to repeat]
A sign that the Spirit is at work is that it always preserves the legitimate plurality of differing points of view, offering as-yet-unknown paths forward, which just might reconcile the positions, keeping the dignity intact of everybody who’s involved.
I want to talk for a minute about binocular vision. The definition of binocular vision is: a type of vision using two eyes. . . . (I just lost my place! I should use both eyes!) . . . two eyes with overlapping fields of view—thank you—and allowing depth perception and 3D vision.
So, our eyes are about three inches apart. And each eye sees a different aspect of an object, because they’re looking at it from a slightly different angle. If I put my hand up in front of my eye, I can both see you and my hand. If I close one eye, I can only see my hand. If I close the other, I can see you. But if I open both eyes, I can sort of “see through” my hand! [Laughter.] Right?
The brain combines the two images into one three-dimensional image. This is called “binocular fusion,” or “binocular stereopsis.” The fusion can only happen in a certain field of our vision: the fields that both eyes can see. This space is called the “fusional space.” The three-dimensional aspect of the image, made possible by the two different views, allows us to perceive width, length, depth, and distance between objects. It’s what gives us depth perception.
Now, depth perception is pretty important for everyday life. It allows us to move without bumping into things, to judge how fast a car is coming when crossing the street, to catch something before it falls. It’s the difference between catching a baseball in your glove and getting hit in the forehead with it when it’s thrown at you. [Laughter.] People with a loss of depth perception experience frustration and anger, and are much more prone to accidents and falls.
If someone loses vision in one eye, they lose 3D vision. With a single eye, you can have some depth perception, but you need other cues to help you, because you no longer have 3D vision.
Combining two different points of view gives a whole new dimension. So, the easiest way to see this for us is in the negative. If I am treating all differing points of view as wrong because they are not “the view” I hold, I will be closed off to the possibility that the Spirit of God knows more than I do. My insistence that there is only one way to proceed will eliminate all other possibilities.
If you find yourself insisting that “my way is the only way of understanding a situation,” or if you hear me insisting that, or “my path is the only path on which progress can be made,” that’s a pretty clear warning that I need to turn to the Lord and find him again.
He is with us. He is most present to us in one another.
So, remembering that “we find in our fellowship the essential core of our life in the Spirit,” and remembering to be armed with mirth, let’s talk! And it ought to be fun.
Our consultation is a real chance to talk about our life together, in all its joys and all its splendor and all its challenges; to find what our Lord is calling us to do; and then do it, together.
Let’s continually turn to the Lord. Let’s figure out what he wants us to do for him, what he wants us to do for one another, and what he wants us to do for this world that he so loves so much. And then let’s be about it together, in Christ.
Amen.
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