The Pain Of The Hallway Experience

 There is an interesting phenomena in the Christian experience that happens when the Lord moves you from one ministry to another. If we consider the ministries like rooms, the transition from one to another requires a hallway. It’s when you are in the hallway that you aren’t really attached to anything but the Lord. You aren’t part of what you left but you are also not yet really part of what the Lord is moving you into. It can be a very disorienting experience even for the veterans of such experiences.

The problem arises because of our tendency to take on as our identity the thing that we do. If we are asked to describe who we are we usually start off with what we do : I’m a pastor, doctor, electrician and so on. We may also describe ourselves relationally ; I am a father of two, a son, a grandfather, a husband. But these do not say who we are.

Identity is very important and when we are in a hallway experience we often have time to consider “who am I”. The enemy wants to define us by our sins and mistakes. People want to define us by what we do. Our family wants to define us by our relationship. But who do we say we are? More importantly, who does Father say we are?

Our Father also defines us according to relationship but it is different with him. He calls us his son or his daughter but this has more of an impact on us than our earthly father and mother. To be his children we had to be transformed to be like him. We have been transformed and we are being transformed. So my identity is both relational (I am a child of God) and behavioral (I am kind, I am loving, I am compassionate and so on). Because I am a child of God, what is important to him is important to me, and what he does is also my desire to do.

The hallway experience is an opportunity to be stripped of anything that has claimed itself as our identity and for us to be renewed in our core identity as a child of God. It sounds like a pleasant experience in theory but the reality can feel very different. It really depends on the circumstances of the change we are experiencing. If you are thankful for where you were but knew it was time to go, then you enter the hallway with great expectation so that the time of renewal is filled with excitement. But if what we are leaving behind is something we don’t want to leave behind but we are doing so only because of obedience to Father, then the period of renewal is filled with great mystery and we may tend to cling to the “doing” of our identity.

Regardless of why we are in the hallway, the great benefit of being there is the renewal of our relational identity with Father. It is in these moments that we renew our attitude that what we do does not matter compared to who we are, and the reality in Christ being that who we are defines what we do. We can be who we are despite how the world defines us by what we do in life. I can be the Prime Minister of Canada and still live as a child of God. I can be a stock boy and find great contentment because I am doing that thing as a child of God. As a son, I am renewed in my contentment so that if he needs me to sit for a while I can sit with joy. Being great or little in the eyes of people has no value to us but pleasing Father does.

C. S. Lewis wrote about the purpose of pain in the Kingdom and the hallway can be a painful moment, but it is amazing what he births out of that pain. Sometimes, the longer we are in something the longer it takes us to be renewed in the transitional hallway. He strips us down so that we are clothed only in him and when we are, we are ready for the next room. It is simple, but not always easy.

The Cost Of Intimacy

 I was reading through Daniel this morning. It's always a great time in Daniel. Many people look at his life in amazement and consider key moments like the lion's den for life lessons. But the lion's den was only the fruit of something more incredible.

I am always amazed at his visions and how he moved about and interacted in these key spiritual moments. His visions/dreams were astounding and much was shown to him. His fame was because he was a dream interpreter, but it was the Lord who explained to him the dreams. But this too is only a fruit of something even more incredible.

There are people who wish they had the same ability to interpret dreams and receive such incredible visions. There are others who wish they could have the strength of faith that Daniel demonstrated. People wish for it but are not willing to pay the price.

"Pay the price" isn't really the best way to say this but there is a cost involved with having the intimacy with Yahweh that Daniel had. The cost is time. Friendship requires an investment of time. Daniel spent a lot of time with Yahweh in prayer and this relationship created sensitivity toward Yahweh.

Daniel's experiences were the fruit of his intimacy and intimacy developed with the time he spent "hanging out" with Yahweh. If we want intimacy, sensitivity, openness with Father it will require one of the greatest sacrifices in this age : time.

This is our great challenge because our society has been very good at developing distractions. There are many "minute robbers" throughout the day. Little things of little value that eat up our time so we have the sense of being busy, convincing ourselves us that we do not have time for Father's priorities. These priorities are simple to understand : love him and love each other. It is hard to love the things we do not value enough to give priority to.

I'm talking to the man in the mirror here. It is so easy to give priority to the distractions without knowing we are doing it. If we kept track of a day in our life and figured out where we were using our time, we may discover that what we value does not match up with what Father values. It may match in our thinking but not in our actions and it requires actions to move into the intimacy we desire.

If we really desire the awareness of the "oneness" that Jesus spoke about, we would start with a simple change of blocking out more time to "hang out" with Dad. Start there and see what it leads to.