Turning Tricks

I live my life from the inside out.  At center is the Spirit and the Word is how I hear what the Spirit has to say.  The wise of heart will receive commandments, but a babbling fool will come to ruin. (Proverbs 10:8 ESV) Reading the Word reduces my babbling foolishness, making my heart wise.  At center is the Spirit and Word.

Next to center is my spirit.  Think bullseye: the closer to center, the more important.  Next to me is my wife, then children, professional interests, extended family and wider world.  I live my life from the inside out.

Starting at center with the Word is strategic.  I want to receive commandments because they guide my day.  What I hear in the study is what every other section sees and hears.  Center is not for them, not even for me; center is for the Spirit.  Sometimes, I go to the center because of my needs at each level.  I go to center to use the Spirit for gain.

I go to center to use whatever goodness I find in my husbandry, parenthood and professionalism.  I stay just long enough to get something meaningful and once I've apprehended, it's time to go.  Sometimes my studies are reduced to a prostitutional transaction. 

Pimp: Sends hoe for personal gain
Hoe: Offers self out of loyalty to pimp
John: Spends resource for self gratification

I am the John, the currency is time, the Word is the hoe and the Father is the pimp.  I participate for the same reasons Johns always participate: loneliness, baggage, selfishness, perversion.  All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.  I am drawn to the Word because of my depravity. 

Prostitution is depraved; there is no love.  When I come to the study without a love for the Word, my depravity is revealed.  What changes my transactional orientation?  The Father.

He sent the Word, knowing I'm depraved.  Everything I offer, in transaction, was made by the One to whom I'm offering.  If the sender doesn't need what I'm offering, transaction doesn't exist.  Prostitution is eliminated and selfishness exposed.  There is no hoe, just an intimate invitation continually perverted by one selfish participant.  What do you do when no one wants your money?

When no one wants my money, I'm just lonely, hoping for relief.  There is no hoe if nothing is exchanged for my relief.  There is no pimp if no one benefits from my relief.  The Sender knows what I am and still sends beauty.  Ongoing exploitation of beauty for my own gain eventually brings ruin.  At the end of my babbling foolishness is the same thing that was there in the beginning:  beauty offered for its own sake. 

If I never engage the Spirit / Word, the beauty is not diminished.  If I approach in depravity or with an agenda, the beauty is not diminished. But if I approach because of the beauty, I am changed.  I go to center because therein I find relief.  Babbling foolishness of prostitution ceases and obedience to commandment gushes. 

I will receive commandments, not out of fear but loyalty.  Wiithout transaction, being sent to my wife, children and assignments's aid makes me like the One sent to me.  He left Trinitarian intimacy to occupy lesser spaces because of His loyalty for the Sender.  I leave center to occupy lesser spaces because of my loyalty for the Sender.

My nontransactional departure from prayer and study, to live from the inside out, is driven by my loyalty for Jesus Christ.  I will go into the world, baptizing and teaching, because I'm in love with the One sending me.  Time away from center is a lesser thing.  Starting at center, in love with the Word, transforms my relationship with myself.  Strategy is reduced to relationship and my perpetual yes.