With And Together….

It’s summer finally, and the days are warm, vivid and green. The vegetable and fruit guy in his make shift hut is going full blast selling fruit, flowers, and berries. Some days it’s just so hot and bright, my aging eyes squint into small slits so much so it almost looks like they’re closed. As the sun wanes …resigned to it’s destination beyond the horizon, the day has cooled and now it’s another beautiful evening.  i know it won’t be long till the air becomes crisp, green leaves turn brown and fall off. But right now, in the evening there is the floral smell of lavender, petunia’s, and grass newly cut. A dog is sporadically barking somewhere in the distance. Ahhh yea … Summer Sunday dreams of long-ago float across my mind. Of days gone past with sweet tea in the evening on the back porch, and pastures so green you can smell the color almost. Fondly, i remember grilling burgers long after the sun went down, walking in high green tree tunnels created by the canopy of big hardwoods, smelling the forest floor yielding it’s earthy fragrance from the heat of the day.

It all inspires me to think of the round and round of the days of our lives. i think so many, although they may gather “together” around local campfires and pubs, they still feel isolated somehow and are a bit clueless on how to be anything else. Each in their own skin, knowing only their own ideas … supposing and speculating about everyone else’s ideas.

i remember when i was in the Navy, i stood in the downtown center of Naples Italy, surrounded by people and was still alone. i didn’t have eyes to see anyone “with” me nor was i “with” them. We were gathered in a group together, but not really “together” as God intended. Don’t get me wrong, i was with some other sailors, and we agreed on many things, but there was no real heart connection which caused us to feel united other than being in the military and being generally disgruntled about life. Agreement does not equal connection. i hope you hear that, here it is again, “agreement doesn’t equal connection.”

i know a fellow who lives in a dark prison cell of his own making. God is with him and i believe defends my friend regularly, but as far as my friend is concerned, he is not with the Lord and has no eyes to see or ears to hear. The Lord is willing to share His life and blood with the man, but the fellow isn’t willing to share with God, and most of the time it doesn’t occur to him that he could. That’s a picture of a man who lives on a one-way street, a street made with his own human hands. In fact, the Lord is closer to him than the air in his lungs but he just doesn’t know it. i fear his eyes have begun to get used to the dark, and he’s been there so long he thinks that’s just the way life is.

We say we are “with” friends and we are “together”, but by far and large our idea of being “with” someone is not nearly as large as God intends the words “with” and “together”.

i’m Social Porter and this is Outposts, cool jazz and contemplative conversation, broadcast semi-live from the deck of a rural cafe, overlooking the broad and beautiful Ockluhwahhah River, where the trees gently lean over the rivers edge, and every evening is pleasant.

Let’s amble around the word of God like friends taking their time on a woodland path, being present and conscious in the moment to notice the small details. The Lord has imparted of Himself into all He made and this is part of learning to know the lover of our souls.

 

Genesis 5:22, “Enoch walked with God after he fathered Methuselah 300 years and had other sons and daughters.” The use of the word “with” in that verse is different from the other uses of “with” in different places. Why did the Lord pointedly make this time to stand out more significantly than others? All i can think is He intends for us to connect the dots (which would be “getting understanding”) concerning degrees of closeness in our relationships.

i knew a guy in high school named Fatty McDermott, his dad had a gas station in town. Of course his name wasn’t really Fatty, and honestly, he wasn’t actually heavy at all. Oh, he was big enough all right but not in the sense of overweight, but his nickname was just something that stuck from his childhood, and we never knew the back story. Now that i think of it, i don’t know that i ever actually knew his real name, even his Mom called him Fatty. He was a pretty good fellow, broad shouldered with meaty hands gained from farm work, sky blue eyes and a super hero square jaw. Anyway, there was something about Fatty that always seemed to make him just a little untouchable, meaning we might be in the same place, except you always felt there was unbridgeable distance in the friendship, like someone with some terrible secret that was just untellable, and maybe he really did have a secret, i don’t know. He had his childhood stories of fishing and hunting, and we all laughed together, cutup and even fought together, but somehow, he was always a little removed. It reminded me of something like if Fatty and i were riding in one of those big long station wagons from the 60’s, i would be driving but he would be in the very backseat, and i mean all the way at the rear window. In the same car, going in the same direction, but there was always an unexplained distance. Fatty tried dating but none of the girls stayed around for more than a few months at best. Later in life i met one of his old girl friends and asked her why she didn’t continue to see him. She said that no matter how she tried, she just couldn’t connect. i told her my “riding in a station wagon” analogy, and she agreed. If she was driving, he was all the way at the back, every conversation was a loud back and forth dialogue with plenty of misinterpretations and poorly understood words, and there was always a feeling of not quite connecting. It was not relational and subtly impersonal no matter how much she tried to connect with him.

i don’t think Fatty McDermott ever married. In light of that, i’ve remembered my young self, and i don’t think i was much different than my friend. i was so bound up in my head and heart, i had so many thoughts in my mind, my mouth was a bottleneck, so i just never talked, and when i did it was just surface stuff, nothing of any magnitude. When anyone hung out with me, it was as if i was all the way back at the rear window of a long station wagon … in the same car, going in the same direction, at the same speed, just not on the same seat close enough to really be involved. It was difficult to have a relationship with Fatty or myself. Like Fatty, i never knew how to position myself so i could be part of anything. In fact, that’s one reason i never made it in the 70’s for UDT-Seals. i didn’t have the heart of a champion, and maybe more importantly, i didn’t know how to be a team player. Other boys seemed to just be natural team players, but i totally didn’t get it. i could be ON the team, but i didn’t know how to be PART of the team.

Sort of like the older brother of Luke 15, i was of the family, but not “in the house”. i don’t like talking about other people, but i’ll tell you what, the older brother of Luke 15, now there’s a guy we really need to talk about.

 

i think we spend an unaccountable and inordinate amount of time believing we are connected to others, but for some reason the close connections seem to often leave us wanting for something closer yet unattainable in and of ourselves. We relate to others by way of our dis-gruntledness with the government, and complain about work or make snide jokes about life, but is it really, truly personal with a real connection? And that is with God’s idea of connectedness. Yea, we may appear to be laughing, but we’re not really laughing, and we may feel like our group is together but it’s not really together in the sense God intends. The Lord is a person, He is personal, and He always deals with us personally. There is nothing in the Bible, cover to cover which is not relational and personal. If we aren’t connecting with God then exactly who are we connecting with?

Most of the time we use the word, idea, or concept of “togetherness” and the word “with” means we are in a general proximity, pretty much doing a similar thing, maybe even for similar enough reasons. Like, “i was with my mom….”, “My dad and i went together…”, and i’m sure you can imagine endless scenario’s and examples. We use the idea of “getting with” people, or going to a “get together” to say several people are gathering as in a meeting or a social event, or someone is “together”. According to Webster’s “with” and “together are called “function words”, as in someone who is a participant to an action, or “being in agreement”. Friends, agreement is not necessarily being connected, as in wing to wing, oar to oar, and heart to heart.

We all have a very subjective perspective of what it means to be “with” someone. If you ask 10 different people to describe how it looks to be “together”, you’re likely to get 10 answers which are similar to widely varying. Like i said, our view of “with” and “together” is very subjective.

As is my habit of loving to gather data and do interviews, several months ago i started asking people what their idea of being “together” meant, and what they thought was the meaning of being “with” someone. One lady said, “Being together with someone, from my point of view, means that you are with that other person and you don’t hook up or see anyone else.” She didn’t really say what her idea of “with” and “together” was, she only offered one of the attributes. Her first thought was in terms of a lover-type relationship. She paused, furrowed her brow in pensive thought, then added, “Its complicated because there’s so many different views people have on being together, but I’m just not sure of what it can really mean.” Notice she qualified her thoughts by saying, “from my point of view”, meaning to me that she, like myself, knew it was subjective.

Genesis 5:22, “Enoch walked with God…” We go to church together, sit with each other, them in their seat and you in yours. We sing with other people, them in their space singing their song, and you in yours singing the same song, but their song is not your song, and your place is not their place. What God has in mind in Genesis 5:22 is much, much closer than that, and His desire is for Himself and each of us to be closer than merely sitting in the same row of seats, you in yours and Him in His. Closer. So much closer. He means for us to be closer to Him and Him to us than the space between your thumb and first finger if you were to rub them together. Closer than a brother. He means His heart is for us to be closer to Him and Him to us that the air in our lungs. Closer. So much closer.

 

Normally, with is used to describe a relationship between two things or people. But in Genesis 5:22, the Lord means for us to grasp a concept beyond simply being accompanied, but closer, in the idea that God calls his people to fellowship with himself, more than just being near, but to actually be in unity from beginning to end with God.

1 John 5:7, “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.”

In Genesis 5:22, “With” is spelled with the first and last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, “aleph-tav”. When i say we “aleph-ta­v” someone, it is a simplistic view of “with”. Simplisticall­y, to “aleph-tav” so­meone is to position ourselves to go tog­ether, “with“, in an intimate fashion wh­ich allows confident and free discourse, participation in an adventure of very close partnership, and sha­ring of attributes back and forth. When Moses was speaking “with” the Lord in Exodus 32:9-14, the Lord said, (my pa­raphrase) “Stand back Moses i’m gonna ki­ll’em all!” (and yes, the Eng­lish translation really is poor), according to the Hebrew, the Lord was speaking WITH Mos­es and was more accu­rately saying what He said as a presenta­tion of an idea and was >>>inviting Moses to of­fer a counterpoint argument<<<. It was God “ale­ph-tav’ing” Moses and inviting Moses to “aleph-tav” Him. It was an invitation for Moses to position himself SO SO closel­y, like a branch is intimately integrated in the tree, that He could freely share all he was with God who was willing to similarly and intimately share wi­th Moses. “With” – aleph-tav in the simp­lest form. Sure, i know it isn’t ALWAYS like that in the use of the word “with” maybe, but i’m shoot­ing at the idea that most of us really really, actually actu­ally, do NOT see our­selves as walking wi­th God in the sense the Lord intends us to walk WITH Him. The Lord is willing, but we are so wrapped up in unbelief and self-condemnation we really have a hard time seeing ourselves that closely with God. Another view of “together” is when Jesus said in John 15:4-5, “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.” See how the vine shares with the branch, and the branch shares with the vine. Do you see the intimate sharing one with another? It’s relational in it’s fullest extent, as God intended by His using the words “with” and “together” with respect to our relationship with Him and the rest of the body of Christ.

You and your spouse go “wi­th” each other. You share all your breathing, all your thinking, all your feeling like our hand shares all it’s benefits with the arm, we “aleph-tav” each oth­er all the time. Do you get it? Matthew 19:6, “So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” Walking closely to­gether on the same side of the road, where the “two have become one”, is a type of “with” in the sense the Lord intends.

Exodus 26:17 and in 36:22 it mentions two tenons being “fitted toget­her”, and how the two tenons “fitted together” gave definition and strength to the entire frame. From God’s perspective, what “fits together” is a vision of union, like close friends or a brother/sister unity. Not merely associates, not just partners, but in God’s idea of a friend. It’s a picture of “with“, they are “aleph-tav’d”, part­icipating in very cl­ose communion, acting as one bracing the other.

 

Judges 19:5-6, “And on the fourth day they arose early in the morning, and he prepared to go, but the girl’s father said to his son-in-law, “Strengthen your heart with a morsel of bread, and after that you may go.” So the two of them sat and ate and drank together.” Notice how this went where it says to “strengthen yourself WITH a mors­el of bread”, then “… the two of them sat and ate and drank together.” The bread became intimately integrated with the one and the one beca­me intimately integr­ated with the bread. Jesus is the bread of life, and taking communion also speaks to us of becoming intimately integrated with the bread, Christ Himself. Then they sat “together”, “with” each other, as a single unit in unity, eating together, and drink­ing together. TOGETH­ER, is a type of “wi­th” where we “aleph-­tav” back and forth. There is unity and intimacy in God’s id­ea of “together”, with the fi­rst two letters painting a picture of a palms up hand reaching through a door of life. It is relational. The first letter is palms up in openness and is an invi­tation for the other to participate, and the second letter is a doorw­ay to life. It is the picture of a hands­hake to “aleph-tav” one another, first and last each other, to beginning and end each other … it’s a two way street of not just an action but INTERAC­TION.

On the road to Emmaus in Luke 24, they we­re walking and talki­ng, talking and disc­ussing. It is a pict­ure of “with” in the the sense of “toget­her“. Then it says “While they were talk­ing and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them.” “Together” and “with” in the same sentence. Ahhh! Th­is is significant! The word “with”, even in Greek, implies a joining in unity, an intimate handshak­e, Jesus “aleph-tav’­d” them as they were “aleph-tav’ing” each other, like branch­es from the same tree sharing in all the resources, back and forth. More than harmony which requires two or more, but unity, as one.

i believe we, as people, generally don’t see ourselves and the Lord like that. Somehow we’ve got this divide in our heads that we aren’t worthy of walking that closely with God, or that it’s not possible because we’re just some old sinner, barely saved by Grace. Well, what about the rest of who the Lord says we are? What will we do with that? God’s view of the redeemed is important to deal with and own. Don’t just get your just dues for sin, get your gifts from God for His redemptive work in your heart too. Don’t just break even, actually prosper.

Enoch walked “with God”. “With” meaning on the same road, going in the same direction, on the same side of the road, His face in our face and our face in His face, His voice in our voice, as one in unity. I think a lot of people see themselves with God in the sense of on the same road, going in the same direction, but on opposite sides of the road, and that’s not the heart of the Lord.

How do i walk in the close unity like Enoch, “wit­h” God, “together” with God?? Obviously, i am powerless to do it myself. But the blood of Jesus has bridged the gap! He is the bridge across the finite, us…and infinity, God. He bridged the unbridgeable making it so we could be “with” God in the sense the Lord intended from the beginning. By the blood of Jesus You CAN walk with God, on the same road, going in the same directions, at the same speed, on the same side of the road, together.

And there you have it, that is “with” and “together” in their simplistic forms. The Lord says, “Come up here” in Revelation, like saying position yourself for a better view of God and “think about it”.

 

In Genesis 7:1, there is a most interesting concept presented by God. Among other things, He says, “I have seen that you”. It doesn’t mean He merely noticed their physical person, like in Genesis 12 where Abram is saying Sarai is so beautiful that “when the Egyptians see you they’ll go wild”. No, Genesis 7:1 means “i see you” in the sense that “i see within you”, “i see into your heart.” From God’s perspective, when He says, “i see you”, “i have seen you” or “i will see you”, He means that He sees and knows your attributes, what makes you tick, even your leanings and intentions and where all those leanings and intentions will carry you depending on every scenario and situation. The Lord wants us to know Him the same way. The closer all things get to the Lord the more all things become like Him, and there again it needs to be pointed out, our greatest strength against darkness and this world is by our coming into the likeness of the Son. God’s heart is that we fully share in Him and He shares in us, like a branch shares in the root of the tree.

The sacrifice of Jesus Christ is good for all of eternity. Instead of many sacrifices, His is once and for all, is sufficient and there need not be another. Jesus is sufficient and necessary and His heart is for each of us to walk together so closely with God, He can hear us sweat and we can hear His heart without using words, that we would share in all He is, again, like a branch shares with the root of a tree. He is willing, are we?

i’m Social Porter and this has been Outposts, cool jazz and contemplative conversation broadcast semi-live from the deck area overcoming the beautiful Ockluhwahhah River where the trees gently lean over the river’s edge, and every evening is pleasant. This programming is meant to inspire us all to a deeper walk with God, below the surface of our presentation face where we’re always being so safe. Safe in our music, safe in our decisions, safe in our faith, safe in our opinions. It’s time to walk on water and take a chance with God.

Support was by Living In His Name Ministries, my beautiful brother at Area 22 Guitars, Allan, Kevin, and Tommy at the Mebane Freedom League, Tony and Danielle of McDowell Electric, Paul at International Tile, Shepherd Funeral Home serving down home potato salad and fried chicken while you’re waiting for your loved ones to be processed, and Jeff and Karen of Trinity Bakers on main street where there’s always something good in the oven.

The Lord says, “behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every person what is theirs according to what they’ve done.”

He is sufficient and necessary. Always. Drive carefully this week, be a responsible person and think, think before you act or speak. Pray for your neighbors, you truly do make a difference. Until we meet again, amen and amen.