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The Puzzle Of Every Life
Episode #186
With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enlow
(M) I do believe we can get off-track. I do believe we can resist Him, and we can make mistakes; we’re free to do that. The great document of His sovereignty is the Bible. If you really grasp the entirety of the Bible, it is that He is sovereign; He ends wars, He raises up, He elects officials, He puts people in places, He has His mysterious purpose. But if you let the Bible declare Who God is, the Bible declares endlessly that He is behind everything, and above everything. And that’s a very big, big God. We make Him small and unable to rule. We make man large and Satan large, and we make God small. And we’re in big trouble when we do that. And we make God wrong too.
(J) I mean isn’t that the whole tempt of Satan in the garden?
(M) Hmhmm.
(J) You’re able to make the choice, decide, and God’s not big enough to take care of you, and I know in some particular way that I can tell you ‘quote, quote,’ Satan; that Satan knows and can tell you.
(M) How does sovereign… knowing sovereignty heal you, and reconcile you with yourself?
(J) I believe that if you have made peace with the sovereignty of God, then you’re at peace, and then there’s a healing in that. It’s very simple, it’s a real simple way of saying it, but I think we all search and seek peace. And I think when you know He is sovereign that there’s a healing that takes place, and a peace and a stillness that goes into your core, and you’re able to accept and receive. You’re delivered from the anxiety. Anxiety is what fights against sovereignty all the time. I’m anxious, I want Him to move, I don’t believe He is going to move, I believe I’m going to fall, I’m going to whatever. All these anxieties, and I don’t release myself and my being to His sovereignty, and I’m in a place of turmoil and spiral of anxiety. But if I have and accepted that sovereignty, there’s a stillness that’s… And there’s a communion in it. There’s a stillness in my soul where my spirit can commune with Him, and my soul can bow to the spirit, and then you go into that whole peace-realm. And that’s what I believe. In answer to your question that’s what I believe. I believe that is you’re looking for that healing, that that would be what the healing was. I mean I’m sure there’s more aspects to it, but that’s what I’m seeing right this second. It’s a coveted place of rest. Be fearful not to enter the rest, why? Because that unrest will take you out of God over and over and over and over again. But if you enter into that rest, into that peace, into the sovereignty…
(M) I’m thinking about it becoming practical. Where does sovereignty become practical? Everyday life. I believe that each person is given a set of problems to overcome. A set of events, and actions, and that… It’s like everybody’s given a puzzle with a… supposed to be put together with wisdom and with learning so that it makes a particular picture in which Christ can be revealed. And it comes sort of in a box that looks chaotic like a mess, like a puzzle does come. And it’s up to me to enter the great adventure of solving my set, my set of problems, challenges, mistakes, failures, happenings to me, and things I have done, and things I’ve succeeded at and failed at, and all, the whole package. It’s not that huge as we make it; if I mind my business, my little box of pieces, it’s possible. Paul finished his walk. Oswald Chambers finished his in his forties apparently, went to be with the Lord. But there’s a certain set of problems that God wants us to know Him in and through. And I wrote something recently, wrote a letter. It may be a letter never sent, probably never will be sent. What I said was, you think life is about becoming, or acquiring, or mastering, but life is about wisdom. The essence of your life will end up being only what you have learned about ‘your box’. And only what you have comprehended or seen… A puzzle’s put together by seeing, and only by what you try to see, and work to see, to learn, to, to… Wisdom is the treasure, wisdom is the wealth; the only wealth that is lasting is to know wisdom in your life. And part of the overcoming of your problems is to find out the purpose, or to find out the meaning, and to find out what it makes you into, and what it gives you of being a vessel of Christ. I don’t know…
(J) That pulls it out of being a victim of the circumstances and into an adventure to go forth and have Him be revealed. That’s huge. Wow.
(M) It takes it out from being a problem to an adventure.
(J) And I’m not a victim of God’s cruelty. “You cruelly chose these set of experiences and, and circumstances in my life.” And all of a sudden, “No, I’ve given you a puzzle here to reveal Me.”
(M) And in His being revealed I’m revealed. I found out who I am by finding out what He gave me to form me. Some people are, some people, John are… never… they never go past twelve years old. Some people never go past six years old; because we’ve got to take our set of circumstances that we didn’t choose, and jump in, jump in the water and dive for the treasure. And most people miss it. Most people don’t ever get it. I love the first three chapters of Revelation. I go there often, and it’s all about “to him who overcomes”. I discovered in a… Let me think what translation it would be. It’s either the Holman, or the ESV. But anyway, one translation doesn’t register the ‘overcomer’. Overcomer is the word we know. But another translation, two of them actually, give, and I think one of them is the Amplified, “to him who conquers”.
(J) Hmhmm, hmhmm. I think you said that was the Holman.
(M) Well, it was a shocking word, because it has a different connotation to me. Overcome means I just survive it, or I get over it, or I master it. But conquer means that… I don’t even know how to describe it. To conquer means that I change everything. When we… When the Allies conquered Germany, Italy, and Japan, they changed those countries. And if I conquer this set of problems, the result will be a complete change in the world. I’m not just to overcome for me; I’m to conquer those human problems. And it just changes… It may not mean that to anyone else, but for me it changed the meaning of what it means and the significance of the reward. So when I solve my puzzle I inevitably solve many other’s puzzle. I help people see the picture once I’ve seen the picture. That’s what fruit is, that’s the thirty, sixty, or a hundred-fold fruit. I can’t solve my little set of problems without it absolutely exploding into other lives. I will tell it, I will naturally convey it, I will write it, I will speak it, you will witness it, you will tell it, John. And so, my little set, my little puzzle becomes a gigantic mural involving a lot of other lives. And that’s what fruit is. Then there is a power that goes out from my puzzle picture, and that’s what God wants. He doesn’t want us to be large before we’ve been small. He doesn’t want us to spread our tent stakes until we have conquered our little private world of self, until we’ve solved the mystery of His sovereignty in my personal life. There is such, such treasure in His sovereignty, such enormous wealth. The only true wealth is wisdom, according to Proverbs. So that’s the value of knowing sovereignty is saying this, “Why did You give me this set of situations, Lord?” Not, “Why did You do it to me?” No, why, what is the secret, what is the mystery, what is the adventure, what is the explosion, what is the rich treasure? What is, what is it? He’ll tell you. He wants you to know. There’s so many outstanding hero’s in the scripture. David is one. He had a terrible set of circumstances for which he was not the least responsible. He was only good and a servant. And Daniel too, was given a difficult set of circumstances. And yet, he didn’t only survive and overcome, he changed the history.
(J) Both men did.
(M) Hmhmm. They changed history. That’s what God wants us to be really. And we want to do it by grandiosity, and by idealism and fantasy. But it begins with my little tiny story that I really don’t like. And you know what? I’ve been speaking this for forty years. That’s what sovereignty is. Your picture that you make out of your puzzle fits into an enormous mural that’s universal, gigantic and huge. And you’re a part of history if you make your piece fit in the bigger piece. If you discover your meaning, or your answer, or your whatever, then you fit in the eternity of Christ, because in the end it’s going to be His history, His story. And my story is about Him, and your story is about Him. The sovereignty is God is forming everything. I told you recently, there’s nothing that happens, there’s nothing going on that isn’t the preparation of the Bride for Jesus Christ. That’s what history’s about, that’s what the world is about, preparing a Bride for Jesus. If that is the culmination of humanity, then that is the purpose of humanity. That’s the purpose of the creation of the world, to form a Bride for Christ. And everything is to cleanse, perfect, ready the Bride for Him, the Bride being men and women. So that’s your puzzle. It’s a picture of your being His lover and His companion, and what He is making of you that He wants to fit in this gigantic event of the marriage supper of the Lamb. And that is the adventure. And that is the ultimate human destination, is the marriage supper that is offered. That is God’s goal for you. So that is the sovereign plan you see. And your story fits somewhere in that, in that tapestry.
(J) Well, that visual picture is so powerful. That is awesome. That is incredible. You know how I always say, when you don’t hear me say something and I look at you and say, “Well, I was just telling you the meaning of life, and I forgot now.” (John laughs) That is truly the meaning of life right there. You just said it. So if you don’t hear it, I’m sorry. (John and Martha laugh)
(M) Yeah.
(J) I mean, you just basically, you just took the crisis of the world, and the crisis of the individual, and you went… And I think about how Mary and Martha asked the same question of Jesus with Lazarus’ death, and they both got a different answer. And you are… You just said, hey, why did You do this to me? Why’d You give me this set of circumstances, why? Or, what are You wanting to do here? What, what is this all about? And it’s the heart difference between the two questions, same words, sometimes, but there’s a heart difference. And ah, I just when you were saying that, I saw Mary just saying, “Lord if You had been here my brother wouldn’t have died.” Well, in conclusion to the podcast I’d like you to ah, on top of the meaning of the world, how would you like to close?
(M) I want to read from “All And Only”. This is from the life of Joseph.“Trauma creates a dilemma with God, not only with life. It throws His character into dispute, His power into doubt, His love into question. Suffering twists our view of God so He seems small and inept.” And then this one statement; I’ll never forget writing it because it was given to me. “Your suffering has a life of its own, full of unborn ideas, pulsing with mystery, rich with potential to solve your future suffering, and, most amazing, your past as well. Your suffering holds the secrets to your appointed lot, and therefore is the hiding place of your power.” So, I think I’d like to end with that. (Martha laughs quietly)
