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To Honor the Experience of Yahweh

I bet you thought I forgot about this blog. If you've been following my poetry blog, you'll notice that I'm not dead, so hopefully no one was worried about that. I haven't forgotten about this blog, either. I've just been going through things too deep and too powerful--too majestic and life-altering--for words.

In fact, I've been experiencing things no other human has experienced before, at least not in any way I've heard or read about, and I have become something more that I ever dreamed.

One of the reasons I haven't written about this on my blog is because the world at large is not in a position to understand it. Some of the people I've told think I'm crazy or heretical. Others have been lifelines as they help me navigate the massive changes.

So instead of telling the world at large what I've been experiencing, I'll tell you some things that I hope will help open the mind to accept experiences that are vastly different than your own. I'm learning this myself:

Each human has been created in the image of Christ, the likeness of Yahweh. Some of us are aware of that, and others are not. Yet, we all hold a treasure inside of us: a unique facet and relationship of Yahweh Himself.

Encountering a person who is not aware of this fact, our response is to remind them through love that they are the bearer of Christ. But what do we do when we encounter someone who has been walking with Yahweh in full awareness of this fact, but whose experiences are so different than our own experiences that they do not seem to mesh with what we have believed or known so far in our lives? Do we call them heretics and apostates? Do we tell them they're bad, wrong, and going to Hell? Or do we move beyond religion?

This is when we must honor the experiences of others. Even as we were created to experience Yahweh in unique and individualized relationships, so we were also created to share these experiences with one another. 

A religious person cannot do this. A religious person will hear of the experiences of another and respond in one of two ways. Either they will make this experience their theology and attempt to model their lives after this person's experience, altering their own unique and individualized relationship with Yahweh, or they will reject the experience of another as contrary to their own, and therefore wrong.

Neither of these responses allows for the experiencing of Yahweh in unique and individualized relationships and simultaneous sharing of these experiences with others.

In a Kingdom relationship there is an exchange of equal and opposing forces. Thus that, when you hear of an experience of another with Yahweh, you neither attempt to impose your own experiences on them--I'm right and you're wrong and that experience cannot have happened-- nor do you attempt to subjugate and reject your own experience with Yahweh in favor of someone who is, in your eyes, wiser or more able to dictate what experiences with Yahweh "should be." Instead, you honor the experience of the other person and honor your own relationship and experiences with Yahweh. You allow them to be who they are in their experiences and you allow yourself to be who you are in yours. When seeming dichotomies arise, you converse about them, and sometimes you accept by faith that both experiences can be true, even if that seems impossible.

You cannot say that your truth is more true than someone else who is aware of and walking in Yahweh. You cannot say that your truth is not true if you are walking in and aware of Yahweh. In Reality, you cannot compare yourself and your experiences with others. You have a unique expression and a unique journey. So does each person. We must honor that. It's how We--Yahweh--designed humanity.

Often, when seeming dichotomies arise in experiences and you take the time to talk with others about it, you will find that they are not dichotomous at all, but rather the same. This takes grace, humility, and oftentimes hours of conversation. (Seriously... hours...) Sometimes people just aren't where you are. Sometimes they have chosen a different path and are having a different experience with Yahweh right now. That's okay. You can let them have their experience. What you cannot do is let them tell you what your experience ought to be.

Only Yahweh can tell you who you are and how you relate to Him. If anyone else tries to take that place, you have entered religion. Indeed, I believe every religion from Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, Judaism, etc has started when someone had a relationship with Yahweh and others took that relationship-experience and made it a law to themselves.

But the law leads to death as much as lawlessness. Only a relationship with Yahweh will allow for everlasting life. I do believe that we all have that relationship with Yahweh, and at some point we will all come to the fullness of awareness of that, but until that time I will continue to experience Yahweh in my own unique way while honoring others in how they experience Him.

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