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Seeing The Expanse
Episode #234
With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
Special guests: Julie and Carole Nelson
(M) I’m always talking about gardening, so. I had found this huge squash in the garden that just sat there all winter. And I just opened it up, and there were hundreds of seeds in there. Probably some of them were viable, but I didn’t save it. But that’s life, from the seed. And I think the talent was really probably a seed that had within itself the fulfillment of its own command.
(Julie) I just see that God is ever provoking us into the eternal; and how, I like your word expanse because I see how Hannah had a desire, but God had a desire first. And His desire was so big and so good that it completely swallowed up her desire and insured its fulfillments. And it’s like, I’m thinking of a story that Martha talks about in the new booklet, about the Canaanite woman, and how it looked like Jesus was being, you know, insensitive and even cruel to her. And He calls her a dog at one point, but what does it matter if you get called a dog by Jesus, but you get held up for all eternity as the example of…
(J) Faith.
(Julie) Persistence and faith and, and prayer. And the same with Hannah, she had a, like you said, she had a little tunnel vision desire to deal with her immediate situation, but God’s standing over here in all His expanse, and He’s wanting to give her an eternal place in all of history and recorded time, to be the mother of Samuel and to be a mother who, who prayed and brought in the will of God in an effect that look how many lives, and look how many lives were touched by Samuel. And Samuel was the one who led Israel through Saul, and to David, and led, led the people of God for generations. And so I just, I love that word expanse. God has a desire first, and we don’t see that. And we don’t, I don’t think it’s typical or natural for us to see the eternal. And yet God in our, in our current situation in a back pain or a difficult relationship, we don’t see that He’s provoking us into His eternal expanse.
(J) Hmm. And that’s Hannah, and that’s the paralytic, and that’s the Canaanite woman, and that’s Carole and John and everyone else. (John laughs.) He’s able to orchestrate it. He’s able to orchestrate the perfection of His perfect will; and it’s not in our perfect way, it’s in His. It’s the, the beauty of chaos is what it is.
(M) He’s referring to the theory of chaos, which means there is, what physicist’s have come to is that chaos has an extreme order, we just aren’t intelligent enough to see it, and there aren’t computer’s enough, big enough to encompass the order that chaos really is. I love it; I love the theory of chaos; its God; God’s bigger.
(J) And it’s a beauty, the beauty of chaos.
(M) Hmhmm. I never put that word with it, but yeah.
(J) I always complain about the mess, and ah, see the mess of a situation, and go, God, this situation is a mess! (John and Martha laugh.) And You say it’s all in You, so it’s got to be a mess. There’s a mess in You, don’t You know, You have to clean it. And He’s going, no, there’s a beauty in the mess, because it’s not mess, it’s chaos, but the chaos is just meaning: outside of my understanding. I’m doing far beyond your understanding, which is chaos to the soul and the visible, but nothing is chaos because God has everything in a plan and an order. But to my natural eye, it’s a mess.
(M) We, we just don’t know Him. We don’t have any idea how much He is God.
(Julie) And that whole plan is so entirely self-existent, and self-sustaining, on its own, independent of us, completely God, that it is as simple to receive as turning our face to the sun on a cold day.
(J) Hmmm.
(M) See, we don’t know how much He’s God, and how much He… I don’t understand how He gives us freewill, and has absolute dominion at the same time. That’s too big for me. Buy Proverbs 16:4, this has always been a, a verse of wonder. “The Lord has made everything for it’s purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble.” So I see we’ve launched off into receiving the bad as well as the good, and that’s the Jewish mentality. I read it in an old Bible of mine the other day. The Jews believe, the religious Jews believe we have to receive the good and the bad from God. But this says, “The Lord has made everything for its purpose, for His purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble.” Oh, ok there’s another…
(Carole) “So in everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.”
(J) Because He sees and has a plan so far beyond our small vision.
(Carole) I just keep hearing the song, “let it be, let it be, let it be, (everyone laughs) let it be, these are words of wisdom, let it be.” (John laughs.)
(M) You know Carole, I went to that song not long ago and just sang it to the Lord. I thought, that is tremendous wisdom.
(Carole) I gotta go find it.
(M) I don’t know what they did with it but (Martha laughs), but it is, it is tremendous wisdom. I think I, I heard it through a Christian singer.
(Carole) Did you really?
(M) Uh-huh.
(Carole) Who sang it?
(M) “The Beatles”. “The Beatles”. (Everyone laughs.) “The Beatles” wrote it. Who, who John, wrote that song in “The Beatles”? Was it Lennon, or no it wasn’t.
(J) I don’t remember if it was Paul McCartney or John Lennon.
(M) I think it was McCartney, but I’ll check that out. Not that I’m a Beatles advocate at all. (Martha and others laugh.)
(Carole) There are moments.
(M) There are moments for everyone, when we touch God, or He touches us. I got the words of that song. I put it in my computer somewhere, let me see if I can find it.
(J) It was written by Paul McCartney.
(M) Yeah, that’s what I thought. See I’ve been at it.
(J) But it was credited to Lennon and McCartney. (John laughs.) Do you want the lyrics?
(M) Yeah.
(J) Ok, so this is the, the ah, “Let It Be” by “The Beatles”, lyrics. “When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me.”
(M) Oh dear. (Everyone laughs.) Oh dear. We’ll replace, yeah, Savior Jesus, that’s how I changed mine.
(J) “Speaking words of wisdom, let it be. And in my hour of darkness…” Oh well, He “is standing right in front of me, speaking words of wisdom, let it be. Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be, whisper words of wisdom, let it be. And when the broken hearted people, living in the world agree, there will be an answer, let it be.” (John laughs.)
(M) But see that’s not the answer.
(J) It’s certainly not.
(M) It’s, it’s let it be Gods really. I’m reinterpreting it. And, you know.
(Carole) Well that’s what He does, He takes those things that the world…
(M) Hmhmm, hmhmm. He’s in. what did we just read? He has made everything for it’s purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble. So I’m, I’m not saying they’re the wicked necessarily, but… He, He wrote that song for those of us who can hear Him. And He’s in everything.
(J) “For though they may be parted, there is still a chance that they will see. There will be an answer, let it be. And when the night is cloudy there is still a light that shines on me. Shine until tomorrow; let it be, let it be. I wake up to the sound of music,” Holy Jesus, “come to me, (John laughs) speaking words of wisdom, let it be.” If we’ll believe that He is truly the Author and Finisher of our faith, and of, of life, then ah, we don’t have to grip and struggle and strain so much. But there’s the long journey that you originally were talking about, is to see that He really is in control, and He really is sovereign, and He really is working out a greater plan than even I can see.
(M) Well some day, as God ordains, I’m going to write about that word ‘let’. It’s a big, overlookable, little word in the scriptures, and very powerful if He ever gives it to you.
