THREE PHASES TO TRANSITiON
You might remember in one of my earlier postings (July 2) that there were three phases that you will go through in completing any Transition. You will navigate through those same three phases, desire, discipline and delight as you transition through the Tabernacle. In the Outercourt you are filled with the desire for change and anything is better than where you are. Desire is an adrenaline that sends you charging toward your future – often without looking where you are going.

DISCIPLINE AND OBEDIENCE
Here in the Holy Place, the first of two covered Rooms of Mystery, you are now well within  the Discipline phase. Again it is through discipline you learn obedience. Discipline can be self induced or externally induced but a lifestyle of obedience cannot be achieved without it. Yes, there are moments in this room that may seem unfair - others are getting away with the very things you have to let go of. But then, they are not in this room and you are. Even now, the mystery of the next room, the Room of Delight, where the intimacy of Spirit to spirit communion is experienced is drawing you. Without your conscious awareness this growing oneness is already changing the rhythm of your heart.

One of the greatest disciplines you can achieve is found in the letting go of the vision you’ve told everyone you are going to do. The very vision God gave you, the very vision that when accomplished, will prove you are worth something – you have made it. This type of thinking proves it is your agenda and no longer God’s that you are making every effort to accomplish, even when you believe that in fulfilling it you will have completed what God has called you to do. Yes, the very vision that God gave you that proves you hear from God can actually become your ‘agenda’. To the degree you need to prove something, that is the degree that it has become “your agenda.”

PERSONAL AGENDAS PRODUCE ISHMAELS
It is not that God didn’t give the vision to you, it’s that you think you can accomplish it in your own strength. Such was the feeling of Abraham and the fruit was Ishmael. Personal motives mixed with a vision from God will always produce Ishmael’s as you look for your own provision to accomplish God’s call. Here is where we learn “When God guides He provides.”

On a personal note, and perhaps to comfort you a little, I have had a few Ishmaels in my life, and the resulting pain can be almost debilitating. In fact, it nears paralyzation, which is just one step away from petrification. One sign of the onset of petrification is spiritual immobility – or the inability to have consistent, focused prayer. Here in this room, you will learn to pray again as discipline tends to generate desperation. In a sense discipline is God protecting you from spiritual immobility or to a lesser degree spiritual atrophication, which is the degeneration of spiritual strength and a loss of the very desire to pray.

DO YOU HAVE AGENDA’S?
Do you have an agenda? Hummmm, well let’s see. Agendas can be hidden to you or known to you. Yet, it makes no difference; they must be eradicated before you walk into the next room – the Room of Delight. Some of the signs of a personal agenda are; an argumentative nature, defensiveness, jealousy, exaggeration, identity in your gift, aggressiveness, and a feeling that you are barely surviving. There are other signs, but these will do for a start.

So, it seems many of you have an agenda, if you do not, you are a rare bird indeed and as such you will proceed speedily through this room and the dealings of the furniture herein. However, if you eventually find your progress to be somewhat slower than you imagined, you might want to take another look at the matter of accomplishing God’s desire in your own strength – these are personal agendas.

At this stage in your spiritual development, it is often difficult to distinguish your agendas from God’s. Soul and Spirit seem so intertwined. However, the ability to distinguish between Soul and Spirit are obtained as you implement the elements found within this room.

HOW LONG WILL THE DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL LAST?
How long will the Dark Night of the Soul last? It will last as long as it takes you to get rid of your agenda and your self-sufficient strength. Be of good cheer you will make it if you do not quit.

Blessings
John Paul

The Dark Night of the Soul is the progression from exterior to interior spiritual impact and that spells change. It is for this precise reason God has ‘wooed’ you here. You have now transitioned from the Outercourt into the covering of the first room of the Sanctuary, the Holy Place. The exterior life is much easier to control than the interior as it is always easier to sacrifice food (fasting) for a day or a week, than to discipline the thoughts, feelings, and will of the soul for the rest of your life.

LETTING GO OF AGENDAS

That is why this room is so important – it is the beginning of the formation of new spiritual habits, conditioned responses, and higher thought processes. It is here you will learn to let go of your agendas that have been constructed from errant perceptions. Those perceptions form your thoughts, those thoughts form your choices, and the choices you have made are the reason for the pain you have deep in the recesses of your heart. Pain that no one but you know about and you may have ignored the pain for so long that you no longer notice it is there – until it is gone. So, in effect, this room is a room for pain removal and you will struggle to keep from running out the screen behind you.

THE PAIN WE PROTECT

Some of you see this pain as a friend – it gets you the attention you need from others, and the thought of losing that attention can be frightening. To you, losing the attention of others means being alone and that seems unbearable. Still this is another lesson you must learn – to the degree you feel alone is the degree you depend on others for your satisfaction, value, and self worth. Here, in this lonely place, God removes your dependency on others to woo you to depend on Him. That is why He only brings one person at a time into this room – here you have to depend on His love to make it. When other loves and distractions are gone you will be able to feel how much He deeply loves you. You can only learn this to the degree you trust Him to heal you where it hurts. He does this by going deep into those inner recesses that you have allowed no one to see let alone touch.

Entering into this room is the only way to learn to hear, think, and have passion for the matters that are on God’s heart – His plans, His desires, His purposes. There are no shortcuts.

download two worlds cd2 atb

EXPECT DISORIENTATION

If you have some disorientation as you enter this room do not be alarmed, it has a certain spiritual swirl that may catch you off guard. You will often feel you have lost your balance in life and are groping to find God. This groping is precisely the inherent meaning of learning to live and move and have our being in Him (Acts 17:27-28). In the darkened, disorienting swirl of this first room you will struggle to know ‘right’ from ‘wrong’ because your values and life principle are being renovated. Soon you will discover that what you used to get away with when you were first saved is no longer permissible in the Holy Rooms of Mystery. The resulting disorientation is the only way for you lose your old patterns of behavior, your old ways of thinking, and your own agenda. If you do not lose these “old ways” you will go right back to doing what you did before you came into the Holy atmosphere of this room. Time in the Dark Night of the Soul is the only antidote to the multifaceted, conditioned behavior of the sin you may have grown accustomed to.

LEARNING WHY YOU WERE MADE LIKE YOU ARE

It is here in The Dark Night of the Soul that you will learn to follow the call of God on your life and leave behind what you thought you were called, designed, and purposed to do. The gifts, the abilities, the personality, even the way you smile affect others and God’s wonderful design of you will start becoming clearer. You learn that all the abilities that God has given you are for a reason - you’re just not using them correctly. As you proceed to the furniture in this room, you will actually learn to appreciate the Dark Night of the Soul and all it is doing in your life. Shortly, you will see that you have now entered into God, later you will learn how to let God dwell in you.

More on the Dark Night of the Soul in my next Post.

Blessings,
John Paul

SOUL SANCTIFICATION
While the Outercourt takes you through a process of cleansing your flesh from sin, it also helps you learn the sacrifice of the moment (repentance), as well as helps you place God as Lord over your life. The Sanctuary addresses two more issues necessary to complete the Sanctification of your tripartite nature (spirit, soul and body). The covered room you have just entered begins that work by addressing your soul. To do this the Holy Spirit will work on you from the inside – out in order to prepare a place for Him dwell and in doing so He works to totally fill every space ‘within’ you – even the smallest of spaces you have historically ignored. You see these Rooms of Mystery are actually you, and in here you will learn how God wants to change you. The Kingdom really does begin within you (Luke 17:21)

The Wilderness of the Outercourt cleanses your flesh, but the first Room of Mystery must go deeper in order to cleanse your soul. You will quickly find the hopeful exhortation of Paul coming true, that God would “sanctify you, spirit, soul and body.” Before you exit this room, you will have had the second of the three dealt with. As you journey through the Amber light of this room you will begin to think differently, respond more maturely, and not give up so easily. You will expect the chaos in your life to turn to a higher order and the result is deeper joy, peace, and faith that you can accomplish all things if Christ strengthens you. All this is the fruit of The Dark Night of the Soul. The problem is that it seems so dark when you first enter. When your eyes eventually adjust, you will have “eyes to see” even when others cannot.

OBEDIENCE RATHER THAN SACRIFICE
In this room you learn that God sets the rules of the Rooms of Mystery. Rules that He knows will benefit you, give you hope and reveal your future – that is if you finish the journey and do not quit. It will take great courage – do you have that? Remember, the Outercourt is about sacrifice. This room - the first room - in the Sanctuary, the Holy Place, is about the mystery of obedience. Remember, the Spirit of God will not violate your will even if it means prolonging your journey.

It was the mental arguments, emotional fears, and the stubborn will of the Hebrew children that delayed the entry to their future by forty years. May it not be so with you.

FROM MY EXPERIENCE

One final thought that I would like to leave those of you who feel, think, and believe that God has not come through for you. The truth is that you more than likely have never completed the transforming process of this room. Sorrow, disappointment, and disillusionment do not mean you have completed The Dark Night of the Soul and God has not come through. It means you are still thinking you can make the rules of the room and how God must respond to your perceived needs. Notice I said, “perceived needs”, because what you think you need is not the reality of what you actually do need – even if you currently think it is.

To the degree you have anger, bitterness, resentment, and pain seething within you about how your life has turned out – is the degree of your need to be in control.  These feelings and thoughts are an indicator that you have set the ground rules that will prove God is real and working on your behalf. Therefore many think that if God does not do it your way, in the manner you expect, then He is not God or He has not held up His end of the bargain. The reality is that there is no bargaining with God. No greater, pure, and perfect light will be given to those who think they set the rules. Perhaps what you are feeling as you read this is the very reason you were brought into this room – to help you think, feel, and respond like He does - instead of the way you historically have.

More on the Dark Night of the Soul in my next post.

Blessings,
John Paul