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~ INDEX ~ Home
Gifts and Graces
Feature
The Ordeal of Phil Snyder, 12/1/05 - 3/21/06.
Essay
“Intention and Decision-making”
by Jackson Snyder, starving
Ragtime Pianist, Article - “Embracing
Our Differences”
Inventories Let Us Pray Subscribe to Gifts and Graces Occasional Ezine Gifts and Graces is published online by www.CharismaticGifts.com, a ministry of Jackson Snyder. use our voice mail at (801) 605-1715. For more about Motivational and Pneumatic Gifts, see www.CharimaticGifts.info. To inquire about our new professional Spiritual Gifts Assessment Certification course, "Discover and Deploy Your Motivational Gifts," send a blank email to certification@aftrain.com. To purchase Christian books and gifts where all the proceeds go toward ministry, visit GlowSISTER. To learn more about Haiti and its children, click on GLOW Ministries International. To see a wonderful photo montage of Haitian landscapes and people, click here. For 1000+ sermons, lessons, books and free online material on spiritual gifts (all f2ee), visit Snyder Bible. For information about the Power Gifts, plus seventy miraculous case histories, go to Charismatic Gifts and Wesleyan Theology. Want to write about your experience with the Gifts of the Spirit? Could you contribute your testimonial or teaching for the next edition of Gifts and Graces Occasional Ezine? Please let us know! Click here!
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Welcome to
Gifts and Graces Ezine issue 2855,
Intention and Decision-making I Yahweh Elohim drove out the man from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. Bereshit (Genesis) 3:23 “This man began to build, and was not able to finish.” Luke 14:30
You are a creative person, I’m sure. The germination - the creation - the coming together of serendipitous elements to form something new – well, such a process seems like it ought to go forth on its own. Like a wild rose, all things necessary come together from afar to create it and its fragrance begs to be inhaled and exploited. Does a rose smell as sweet if there is no one to smell it? To extend the metaphor: as sentient beings, we have the right stand outside ourselves and consciously behold our creative and altruistic endeavors as if they were foreign to us. Look at the rose. It is totally other. We objectively inspect it, smell it, compare it, rate it.
Some plantlings in the garden of our WORKS look like awkward, neurosis-ridden teenagers that were once so cute, so polite, so attractive years before. But now, as half-grown-lings, having been left to their own devises for the last five or ten years . . . what we had wished for them we now realize will never come to be. Even as new creative projects come my way in a storm of possibilities - new interests, brainstorms, lucid dreams – and first attempts at realizing them – planting them in my garden - this stark business of self-observation again reminds me that so many other life- or world-changing, half-baked. half-nurtured, half-finished plantlings are even now rotting away.
THE ILLUSION OF GREATNESS Jeremiah 18:4. And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it. Previously to recently, I looked at these children through jaded spectacles – I saw creative accomplishments, writing, music composing, concretizing of ideas, quantity of texts and manuscripts written, all these things plantlings as though they were steadfast tine soldiers working silently in the service of the King. If they didn’t behave as good soldiers, that was someone else’s problem; someone was to blame, not my children, not my battalion, not me! What happened to make me see things more realistically was that a friend sent me an old book – a little paperback written by a Jungian psychiatrist called The New Man. SEEING OBJECTIVELY I am a theologian. I have read hundreds of books by famous Bible experts on the stories of Jesus and what they are supposed to mean for our lives. But this little book taught me, through simple bible parables, how it is possible for a person to objectively stand outside one’s self and view one’s deeds in the light of truth. Few interpretations have made such an impression on me nor have the potential for changing my garden. The primary good of acquiring the ability to stand outside one's self and observe (and I know of very few people who can or who would even try to do this, so addicted to illusion is our society), is to take the memory of what we have seen of ourselves back into life and with the new intention of living each moment of time henceforth intentionally. Now that doesn’t seem like such a difficult assignment, but I assure you, having tried to do this for nearly a year now, it is difficult, made even more so by the alarms your left brain sets off when you have committed an act or said a word unintentionally. James 1:23. For if any one is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who observes his natural face in a mirror; 24. for he observes himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. CAREFUL LIFE
ADMINISTRATION If the Bible stories are historically true, then we can see Yahshua no other way but as a careful life administrator. Certainly, it was through such intentional living that Yahshua’s creative ability made the lasting impression, although only a tiny fraction of his actual history is known. Today we say, “Make every moment count.” People with advanced age certainly see the meaning of this clearer than youth. An uncounted moment in youth can affect entire lifespans. Yet making every moment count is still not intentional living. Maybe a better saying might be, “Make an effort to execute every moment for the highest and best good of all concerned while at the same time considering the difference between what is good and what is perfect.” Even that is insufficient. The good is really seldom the perfect. The writer of the New Man agrees with Yahshua the Anointed One: that if we make this kind of realization habitual – if we get used to disciplining our lives from moment to moment – then we will never again see that garden of rotting children when we stand outside and look in, for all our plantlings will be brought under the dominion of the Almighty through our lives and decisions. (Please understand that I am not writing about being good all the time or acting nice all the time or endeavoring to become a perfectionist. Yahshua was perfect, but he wasn’t that nice. Note Mark 7:26ff and many other places where he was intentional, but not nice; where he was perfect, but not that friendly; where he would give a little, but no more.) So I have been trying to become a new person intentionally. As I said, it is hard going because my errors and personality flaws are made all the more obvious now that I know what my garden looks like. At this stage in the process of transformation, as intention is starting to become habitual, right decision-making must be learned, because every choice, every interaction, every written word, every move made affects creation for good or ill. Lives are at stake. The same friend that sent me The New Man a few years ago suggested I read another little book, this one about the creative process. The Path of Least Resistance is also an old book, very dated. But there is a section of “Avoiding Effective Choosing” that can help us make intentional decisions to make an impact on our psychological niche immediately. In the book there is a listing of things we do to avoid making a reasoned choice. These not only keep our plantings from growing, but lack of reasoned decisions ruin our lives. As I read through the list, I noticed that my lack of good intention has involved me in every one of these avoidance behaviors. Behold the power of effective choosing by studying the ineffective: Choice by limitation is making a choice, but only the choice which seems most reasonable or do-able. I wanted to be a musical composer when I was younger. I had the stuff to become one, and still have to some extent. But others I knew who were great musicians with dreams became instead teachers in public schools. I definitely didn’t want that. Composing has a very limited market. There aren’t many starving Barry Manilows that go from writing jingles to performing at Carnegie Hall! No, most end up either teaching or on the burning trash heap. My father wanted me to take over the family business. I wasn’t suited to it, nor did I like it, but I pursued it anyway. I made what I thought was a reasonable choice limited to my own limited vision. Choices we make when young affect the rest of our lives. Limiting our choices to what is reasonable or do-able seems smart but certainly closes the door to faith, talent, hard work and providence. It was not reasonable to believe I could succeed at becoming a composer. So I limited my choice to what I thought anyone could succeed at – pouring concrete. The more I poured, the more I felt incapable of succeeding at anything else. One success, they say, leads to other successes. But I say that maybe one success leads to mediocrity. Choice by indirectness means choosing a process over a result. This is especially appropriate to religious folks like us. Do we keep the Commandments of Yahweh because we truly love him? Or do we do so out of duty, committed to the process rather than the result? Pastoral counseling is another trap – several believers I have counseled over a period of time were invested solely in the process rather than in the result. They made little progress in the overall solutions to their problems while they were continually enthusiastic about the sessions – probably because of receiving the immediate gratification of positive reinforcement. Unfortunately, we get so involved in the process that the result we aspired to is completely obscured. (And sometimes the process seems more enjoyable than the once-hoped-for result anyway.) Choice by elimination often results from someone exacerbating a situation to a point in which some one eliminates themselves from the decision-making process entirely – at least they think they do. Making a choice by elimination often follows with the words, “Things got so bad there that I had no choice but to leave,” or, “Personally abandoning the situation was the only way to keep the rest of the group together.” Granted, this is occasionally the case, especially if we are not the ones to stir up the negative emotions or opinions in the first place. Sometimes such a choice will preserve a person’s health. However, this tactic of elimination is used far too often simply as an excuse to abandon a project, cause or person with which more perfecting work is to be done. It gives a reasonable (but false) "out" of a situation in which a more intentional choice should be made. Choice by default – or, choosing not to choose – if often employed with the logic that “every problem will resolve itself by itself eventually - just give it time.” “Time heals all wounds.” Are you avoidance-motivated? Take my Motivational Gifts battery and I’ll reply with something for you to think about. For those who are trying to get a mission accomplished for the Kingdom, encountering people who choose not to choose are probably the most frustrating. I’ve heard on many occasions church or business officials say, “Though it is our responsibility, we will leave the situation be; it will work itself out.” Talented but slothful servants promise, “I'll pray about it.” Okay, maybe some actually do. There is a verse in Scripture that seems to validate defaulting. Romans 8:28: We know that in everything G-d works for good.... Let G-d work it out. Let go and let G-d. “If G-d wants it done, he will see to it.” However the next clause and following verses invalidate this notion. Let me quote it from Young’s Literal Version: And we have known that to those loving G-d all things do work together for good, to those who are called according to purpose; because whom He did foreknow, He also did fore-appoint, conformed to the image of His Son, that he might be first-born among many brethren . . . . This takes us back to the will, intention and action of the perfect man. When we default on making a choice that is in conformance to the will of Yahweh (when given the opportunity), we deny Yahweh’s foreknowledge, his appointing and election, and our conversion and reformation toward receiving the decision-making mind of his Son. Yes, Yahshua wrote in the dust, but then he looked up and made a firm choice: “Go, and do not sin again!” (He could have said, “Go ahead and stone her. Here death will work out for good in the end." But he did not. If you’ve stayed with me thus far, please allow me to finish this memo in my next publication. If you read this far and what you've read has been valuable, please LET ME KNOW! In the meantime, hold on for the conclusion next time. NOTES: 1. After midnight for three months I’ve been anointed to manuscript Sacred Name psalms from the Scripture. Now this has gone on just about every night for this time and continues. I have nearly a hundred manuscripted and many more not yet in finished form. How could this be? Check the lead sheets here: www.elohymns.com. 2. The New Man and The Mark by Dr. Nicoll and The Path by Fritz are hard to find books. Let me know if you want to change your thinking and I can get you a digital copy. EMBRACING OUR DIFFERENCES
Or, if my emotion is less than yours or more, given the same circumstance, try not to ask me to feel more strongly or weekly. Or, yet, if I fail to act in the manner of your design for action, let me be. I do not for the moment at least ask you to understand me. That will come only when you are willing to give up changing me into a copy of you. I may be your spouse, your parent, your offspring, your friend, or your colleague, and in understanding me, you might come to prize my differences from you, and far from seeking to change me, preserve and even nurture those differences.
I can almost guarantee that the above statements ring true in the "heart
of hearts" of every human being. I believe that at one time or
other, we have all had that inner urge to SCREAM, "....is there anyone
out there who understands me" !!! Someone may be able to refute scripture or theology
or anything at all....but no one may refute your story! That’s what
makes it so powerful....you’re not preaching, just telling your
experience of how God changed your life.! Most people are intrigued and
want to hear more, if it is done with discretion, wisdom or humour,
depending on your personality. This E-zine is published by Jackson Snyder and ATC Web Publishers © 2006. |
by Michelle Papineau-Stoen,
Jazz Singer and Motivational Speaker,
British Columbia
The
creative process has been swelling my mind
these last few months: so many projects – projects that seem destiny-fulfilling – that seem globally useful – that seem so potentially
valuable – but alas, so little time. 
If
I do not want what you want, please try not to tell me that my want is
wrong, or if I believe other than you, at least pause before you correct
my view.