BP 100
As you may remember, a month ago I wrote a blog post entitled The Rumbling, the Thundering, the Groaning that spoke about a book I wrote that was going to be released last Friday. Well, the book named The Rumbling Beneath is out there in the world now. Please check it out. This first book in a series of five is a bit longer and so a bit pricier but future books will be more affordable. The first book is longer because it develops the personalities of the six students and their professors. It also launches their adventures at the mysterious academy.
“The Cave of Dread” (alternately known as the Cave of Presence) is part of the school’s curriculum and involves every student spending hours alone in a dark cavern beneath the Academy. During this solitary sojourn, certain professors and other students are praying for the person who is in the Cave of Dread. They are asking God to speak powerfully to the student’s heart during his or her time of isolation in the dark cavern where all of life’s distractions are temporarily removed. Please find below a brief excerpt from The Rumbling Beneath describing a portion of Emily’s experience in the Cave of Dread:
For a while, Emily listens to the sound of retreating feet shuffling over the stone floor of the tunnel. Then there is only silence. She is alone. They have taken all the light with them.
“I’m definitely not going to do this in the dark,” she says out loud. Kneeling on the mattress that was unwrapped and laid out on the floor before the others left, she gropes in the blackness for the candle and the box of matches that Embee said were left for her. Eventually, she finds them and lights the single candle that generates only a feeble glow in the large cavern.
Initially, she is not convinced that the light is a good thing because now she looks up apprehensively into the dark vault above her and down the length and width of the gloomy room. The single candle sheds only enough illumination for her mind to imagine dark images in the corners of the creepy cavern . . . .
As she knew it would, a familiar sensation begins to gnaw away at her heart. In recent years, she has come to think of it as her dis-ease. She experiences the dis-ease as a combination of restlessness, desire, shame, aloneness, and abandonment. She must send it away.
On this night, it slowly grows in intensity until she is forced to stand up and pace in the gloom, candle in hand. . . .
The tension within her begins to morph from the vague restlessness to something different. She feels an emotion. Sadness. She also sees a face in her mind but cannot identify it. Then something strikes her. She stops pacing.
She remembers that she was a daddy’s girl since the day she was born.
Funny, how I forgot that, she thinks in her foggy brain. Soon she remembers why she had to forget that. She begins to pace again.
The truth is, she has been distant from her parents for years now. When she strayed off the ancient path and began travelling down her own road, she had to avoid them. She perceived them as too conservative, too overprotective, too judgmental, too ignorant, blah, blah, blah.
The alternative road she has traveled down for a handful of years now has taken her far away from everything she was raised to believe. So, now she avoids her parents for another reason: she believes they will be deeply disappointed in her choices; and worse than that, deeply disappointed in her as the daughter who used to be their good girl.
Emily believes they will shame her–make her feel bad for what she has done and for what she believes. They will judge her. Yes, that’s the primary reason she avoids them, she thinks. They are narrow people, and her life has become . . . broader.
But somewhere inside her befuddled mind, she wonders if she also avoids them because . . . she feels guilty around them—even if they don’t say a word. Her options, then, are to blame her parents for judging her or . . . or to admit to herself that she is acting in a way that generates guilt within her even apart from anything they might say.
She cannot allow the latter truth to linger in her mind because then she will have to admit that she is doing something bad. She may even feel compelled to give up what she is doing that brings her pleasure and makes her feel calm. She absolutely refuses to do that.
Emily paces even faster in the damp candle-lit gloom as the emotion within her grows more intense. It chokes her throat while tears beat against the inside of her eyes, clamoring for release. Suddenly, she cannot breathe.
Emily collapses to her knees on the stone floor of the cavern. In that instant, a heavy curtain that has covered her heart for years is yanked aside for an instant and she realizes that her path has taken her far from God and the people she used to love. How much she has lost! She has strayed away from them so she can pursue other loves and avoid facing the consequences of her poor choices.
The tension of the brief civil war within her becomes crushing.
She has placed herself in a position where she will suffer loss no matter which path she now chooses; but she is convinced that if she forsakes her current affections, she simply has too much to lose and too much to own. The pain and the guilt will be massive as well as the fear of losing her comforter.
Just when her heart is about to break like the dam of an engorged reservoir, the candlelight in her hand is extinguished and Emily finds herself in utter darkness.
For a long time, she kneels on the cold stone floor, disoriented. Eventually, she gets to her feet and carefully makes her way back toward the mattress, her arms stretched out before her in the total blackout. Briefly, she sees a mental video of her dad tying a blindfold around her eyes and placing a small baseball bat into her hands so she can swing away at the butterfly piñata. It is her ninth birthday.
For a moment, she contemplates the idea of returning to her father as well as to her Father, but then she remembers it. No, she remembers them. She stumbles in the black cave and falls hard onto the stone floor.
Emily hears the familiar voice in her head that seems so ancient now, as if it has been there from the beginning of time. It accuses her of being selfish, foolish, bad, sinful, evil. Her parents and friends will be ashamed of her, it reminds her for the millionth time. It tells her that no one who loves God would ever do what she’s done. Then comes the familiar coup de grace: Murderer.
The accusation is spoken quietly. It rings with finality. It defines her.
Emily curls up into a ball where she has fallen. Soon she becomes as cold as the stone floor on which she lies—and just as hard. She feels nothing. She remembers nothing.
As mentioned earlier, Emily is one of six graduate students whose life at the Teleios Academy is chronicled in the book, The Rumbling Beneath, the first in the Jack Sutherington series. When the students begin their studies at the school that is designed for Christians who wish to become uncommon in their faith, they have no idea what adventures are waiting for them during the year ahead. All their adventures have been designed by their loving Savior to grow their experience of presence.
As many of you know, Designer Therapy for Life is all about experiencing the Presence of God, other people, and our own hearts. It also identifies and addresses anything that interferes with that presence—within us and outside of us.
God has called Emily, Rachel, Aliyah, Armando, Jack, and Stewart to the small Academy to grow them and to reveal to them the obstacles within their own souls that disrupt their relationships with God, others, and their own hearts. After all, growing into what Jesus has called us to has a lot to do with abiding in Him.
Jesus Himself says, Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full ~ John 15:4-11.
Jesus repeatedly refers to abiding in His message to His disciples the night before He was crucified. Presence is all about abiding, being with, practicing intimacy, trusting, loving, forgiving, sacrificing, moving toward others. All these relational actions are the bedrock of DTFL because they are part of the bedrock of God’s character and His gospel.
We are all Emily, Jack, Aliyah, Armando, Rachel, and Stewart. We all have obstacles within us that prevent us from abiding with Jesus, others, and our own hearts. The Rumbling Beneath book and the Designer Therapy for Life blog both are driven by a desire to help individuals identify and remove anything that rises up between you and others. These obstacles include things like dysfunctional coping skills, unhealthy defense mechanisms, distrust, self-sufficiency, the arguments, strongholds, and fortresses of Satan mentioned in 2 Corinthians 10:5, your own sin, and the sins of others against you.
Be sure to read as many posts as you can of the DTFL blog. They are all designed to move you close to the loving God who created you for deep relationships. Nothing else matters in the end if you gain the world but do not know Him—if you have not received the Holy Spirit who empowers you to trust, love, and forgive.
Jesus said, If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself ~ Luke 9:23-25.
Knowing Jesus is the lynchpin to living a fulfilling life on this planet. Knowing Him means life for us!
Every day, fight to abide with Jesus. Strive to practice His presence. Run the race, all the while keeping your eyes on Him, the author and perfecter of your faith.
And, oh yes, if you have a chance, read the five books in the Jack Sutherington series beginning with The Rumbling Beneath! They all deal with practicing the presence of God in a universe opposed to intimacy by laying aside every weight and sin which clings so closely (Hebrews 12:1). Only then will we be free to love with joy. The books also point to healthy ways to move toward others just as Jesus moved toward us!
Yes, run the race toward an eternity with the One who loves you more than you will ever know!
Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need ~ Hebrews 4:14-16