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In Our Vulnerability, the Spirit Leads
Episode #631
1-6-2019
With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
This is the final episode of a series of podcasts started in Episode #629
The vulnerability of a little child is heart-wrenching to see, but that’s how open we’re called to be. The Holy Spirit then moves in and takes the lead!
Martha:
I was grieving about someone recently who is missing the mark so badly and I said, “Lord, what is it?” And He said, “She will not be nothing.” And I said, “Oh, let me be nothing.” I am nothing.
John:
I am nothing!
Martha:
I’m ever discovering I am nothing. He is everything! And He’s got to be everything. We don’t need to be anything. We are a vessel. We are a clay, common vessel. And we don’t— We need to be in the adventure of watching Him live a life that we’re incapable of living in our own being.
John:
It’s not a slight on us. It’s…
Martha:
No, it’s just the reality.
John:
It’s the reality and it’s the blessing of everything.
Martha:
It’s dependence. We are independent and that’s the sin of the garden. But, oh, how lovely to be a stupid sheep and know that He doesn’t expect us to be anything else.
John:
Or if you don’t like to be a sheep, be a child. Either one, either one are completely dependent.
Martha:
Yes.
John:
Utterly dependent. Devastatingly dependent! You know…
Martha:
Permanently dependent (laughs).
John:
Permanently! And you, you said, you said when you would look at the grandchildren, you realized how vulnerable they were and how painful it was because of their vulnerability.
Martha:
Oh yeah. I didn’t see that vulnerability for my own children as clearly. But when that little grandbaby…
John:
Well, you’re so vulnerable when you first are a parent. You’re so vulnerable…
Martha:
Yes, that’s true!
John:
Because you’re learning and you’re thinking, “Oh my God, just not let me not, not, not let this person die!” You know, you’re trying to keep them alive and you’re trying to stay, you know, ahead and, but when you’re a grandparent you can look and you see the entire picture. You see the broader spectrum and a bigger picture of it all. And you do, you see their vulnerability.
Martha:
That’s just heart wrenching.
John:
Because you can see their vulnerability even to the parent.
Martha:
Yes, most of that, mostly that.
John:
How, how soft they are to the touch. Hard touch, soft touch, angry touch—all the touches! You realize how easily they can be crushed.
Martha:
I remember watching a father and mother and a little girl. I think she was probably four. They were in, we were in a restaurant and I was watching them because the father and mother were talking and they were taking care of her but they were indifferent to her. I don’t mean badly. I just mean naturally. They were talking and they were having, and… But she was watching them with the most intense attention and they never knew it. She turned her head to one, to the other when they spoke and she never looked anywhere else but in their face. And that was her vulnerability to them that she was absorbing who they were. Maybe not understanding what they were talking about. She was absorbing each face as though it was the only thing in the world. And I went, “Oh my goodness, I missed it! (Laughs) Oh!
John:
I saw a family that was at a, a restaurant the other day and the, the one little boy was so excited to show, you know, I mean it was, it was just a little child’s drawing on, on a placemat, you know? But he was so excited. There was… I was looking at his face. I didn’t care what the drawing was. I was looking at his face about… He created something and he wanted them… And the mom was just like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” And just kind of pushed it off. Which you do! It’s, it’s normal, you know. “I, I’ve got five kids. I am spinning plates here! Do you understand me?” And, and, you’re not bleeding right now and, and so you’re not going to be the plate that get spun. But his face was giving everything. He was registering a desire to be seen in that moment, and she didn’t have it for him. Ok, it’s fine. That’s the way it is. That’s the way life is. That’s the way God’s designed it. And, and I’ve seen and I’ve written about God’s jealousy in that.
Martha:
Um hmm. That child is His. Well, it appears, John, since we got this direction separately and you were writing your post…
John:
Yeah, I was writing a post while you were getting ready, yeah.
Martha:
While I was getting ready.
John:
Yeah, and we, I had no idea where you were going and you had no idea with, where I was.
Martha:
But we were in the same stream of Spirit. I have to… I really believe that that stream is the same wherever the Spirit is welcome. So learning to discern is a preparation for the days to come and a preparation for life to discern, that… I remember some years ago they were training little children to trust their intuition and if they felt someone was dangerous to get away, even if there was nothing obvious. And that’s your strong suit, John.
John:
Is my intuition.
Martha:
Your strong suit is intuition. Yeah, most men don’t have that developed but you do. Something in, in your life in God’s grace… You developed it.
John:
Well, it was just the fact that I didn’t have a lot of education. I didn’t have a lot of learning, book learning so to speak. I wasn’t a big reader and I didn’t have a… And I felt very vulnerable and very insufficient in that, which was, you know, kind of cutting on myself worth and, you, know, my ego and, but that’s, that’s where I went. I literally had to trust my gut.
Martha:
Um hmm. And you’ve always spotted things that I don’t because of your intuition. It’s how you solve problems. It’s, it’s in your spirit.
John:
(Laughs) Yeah, really.
Martha:
And the Holy Spirit wants us to learn that. He wants us to be sensitive to the force of Jesus, to the nature, and the presence of Jesus. There’s only two presences.
John:
Right.
Martha:
Dark and light, love or hate. And it’s amazing to me that a wolf in sheep’s clothing can so deceive; one who pretends to be of Christ but who’s really of Satan. That and, and Jesus said they are going to come in, in your midst. And I think Paul said it too before he went to Jerusalem to be crucified. It’s so easy to be fooled and I have been. You, you have rarely… I’ve never seen, I don’t know that I’ve seen you be really fooled by anybody. You’ve had maybe not the full picture but a hint, a whiff, a nudge. And you listen to it and that is the Holy Spirit directing.
I remember one time when we were in the airport in Spain and you suddenly… I was… You were at the counter of the rental car and I was sort of standing in the big hallway and you grabbed me and pulled me out into the thing, I thought. And then this, apparently, a thief came running by with two police after him and you, you didn’t see but you felt that we were in danger.
John:
I, we, I had finished with the rental car. We were on the way out to go get the car.
Martha:
Oh, okay.
John:
And I could feel something happening behind us. And I didn’t have time to, to turn around and look. I just grabbed you and pulled you over and immediately that’s when he ran by us. He would have…
Martha:
He was right on my heels, would’ve knocked me down.
John:
He would have knocked you down. Absolutely! And then the cops were right behind him and, and they may have knocked you down. I don’t know.
Martha:
Yeah, could have been. I was oblivious to everything but you… That was, that was a nudging of the Spirit.
John:
Yeah, I believe that was.
Martha:
And I’m, I’ve…
John:
Because it wasn’t like I heard foot, footsteps running.
Martha:
There was no noise.
John:
There was no noise. It just was… Something, something was happening. So… And the Spirit so wants to communicate that stuff to us. He’s so interested in being that involved and that engaged.
Martha:
Present and heard!
John:
And that present, absolutely! And, but you have to remain vulnerable and if you remember we left, we left that airport, got in that rental car, and we experienced the biggest vulnerability that I’ve ever had in a car. “Oh, Jesus, Jesus here we come!” And off we went into the crazy Madrid.
Martha:
We survived!
John:
Oh my goodness, barely!
Martha:
Right, barely! And I was no help.
John:
Wow.
Martha:
You finally said, “Martha, look out the window.” (Laughs.)
John:
Yeah. (Laughs) “Look out the window. Don’t look at anything else in this…”
Martha:
“Don’t look at the GPS.”
John:
Yeah, “Don’t look at GPS! Don’t look at nothing. Just look out the window and pray.”
Martha:
(Laughs) But I, if this is the close, I close it with a tremendous cry to the Lord to give us discernment. Give us the surrender to the Spirit, which is the primary thing. The surrender… You only have discernment if you surrender to another mind other than yours. So I just pray for that for me, and all, all God’s children in these days to come.
John:
See, I think discernment goes dead in to being a sheep and being willing to follow.
Martha:
I do too, John.
John:
Listening to the, the Shepherd’s voice and not listening to another. That’s where discernment comes. I believe that as long as we remain in that vulnerability… We didn’t pick up the power, we didn’t pick up the strength. We stayed in the vulnerability and then we were given the strength as Christ lived it through us.
Martha:
And everywhere we went, we were guided, really, on that trip. We ended up in some wonderful places.
John:
Well that, I think it’s all of life. I think it’s all of life to remain a sheep, to remain a child. Then you do have the discernment.
Martha:
The vulnerability, you’re, you are stating it as an unalterable fact.
John:
It is!
Martha:
We like to change it to not be that way. But it is the truth.
John:
Well, that’s what, that’s what Oswald said there, isn’t it?
Martha:
Um hmm.
John:
How did he, what is the term he used?
Martha:
He said until… The greatest blessing spiritually is the knowledge that we are destitute. Until we get there, our Lord can, is powerless. He’s got independence.
John:
See, when we pick up the power we’re, we are powerless. But when we will lay down the power and we won’t take that up and we remain in the vulnerability, then He is the power.
Martha:
He is the power. But if we’re going to go running off with our own agenda and leave Him…
John:
God help us!
Martha:
Yeah. Help us indeed.
In Our Vulnerability, the Spirit Leads – Episode #631 – Shulamite Podcast
The vulnerability of a little child is heart-wrenching to see, but that’s how open we’re called to be. The Holy Spirit then moves in and leads us through life’s labyrinth, with all wisdom and discernment available for every possible circumstance we encounter!
