Episode #474 – The Spontaneous Mind of Christ

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The Spontaneous Mind of Christ
Episode #474
January 3, 2016

With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
Special Guest: Jennifer Wentzel

This is the continuation of a series of Podcasts started in Episode #471.

(Jennifer) You say that about order, Martha, and it occurs to me that when we focus on the Bible for the purpose of mastering it, study, that really we’re looking at things one at a time or putting things in order for ourselves. That’s how we master it. Once you have the order of something, then you have the thing. We write like that. We have an outline of what we’re going to say, and then we follow that outline and flesh it out, and we have the thing. He completely doesn’t work like that. I mean He really doesn’t. Carole has commented on writing because, you know, most of my posts are written literally an hour and a half, maybe two hours before I have to put them up. Now this is the pattern of my life. I have always called myself the queen of procrastination, because I have the hardest time getting started. It really wasn’t intended to be procrastination. It was just I would sit there and look and look and look, and then only the severe pressure of time would come and burst in a flurry of panic and produce the movement that I needed to write a paper, to, you know, anything like that. And that’s not how the posts are. Really, I just sit there and I say, “Well, I don’t have anything.” And I don’t have anything and I don’t have anything. And I say, “Well, You better come up with something, because I’m supposed to do a post.” And, you know, there have been times obviously where I’ve said to John, “I’ve still got nothin. I’m so sorry. Nothin.” But they really don’t happen as often as I would think that they would happen. And it’s bec… I realize that one of the main things in writing is getting me out of the way. And if I wait until the last minute, honestly, it’s because it took that long for Him to wear out my mind grasping for something, and to get me out of the way so that He can say, “Here’s what I want you to talk about.” And the way His mind works is just fascinating to me, because it really is, you know, a birthing process. I don’t know how it is with longer works. I have never, you know, written a book or even a booklet. A post is a fairly small thing. But when He, you know, births it, it’s kind of a whole, you know? There are times when I’ve struggled with getting certain parts of it out, but by and large there’s no outline, and there’s no… It’s kind of a phummmp, like this is it. And then His order comes out as the story is told. He always works with stories with me, because that’s my love, and so He works with what He gave me to love, you know. But His mind, it doesn’t, you know, if you read a Bible study, if you do a study guide for a book, something like that, they’re all very orderly and they’re very factually based, and they’re “How can you, you know,… let’s find a way to get this concept deep inside of you so that when you talk about it to the next person, you can regurgitate what that concept was for chapter 1, for chapter 2, for chapter 3.” This is what we do. It’s how we teach our children. And that’s just not how He works at all. You know, with me it’s like I’m looking across, and I see nothing, and all of a sudden there’s this spot of light over here, and it’s on this particular part of my life. Maybe it was today, maybe it was 5 years ago. It doesn’t matter. All of a sudden that whole situation is lit up for me in Him. And that is not how my mind works. My mind doesn’t have a spark that’s over here, and then I move to investigate the spark, and I’m like, “Oh, well there’s a big bright light on this area of my life, which coincidently is what You’ve been doing with me, and this is the example of it in my life. And this is a part of my life that either I’m repenting for or You’re showing me here I was in this situation.” It’s always illuminating Him in that particular area and making it possible for me to in some way project that part of my life out for somebody else to glimpse. I mean, no one’s ever going to see it the way that I see it, but… But my mind doesn’t work like that. That’s not how I tell stories, you know? I would write for the audience, which is to say, “What would people find interesting? What’s going on in the world that people are interested in, and what do I have to say about what’s going on in the world?” And if you look around at most of the Christian blogs and magazines and all the rest of it, that’s precisely what they’re doing. They’re doing Christian commentary on the events of the world. And that’s fine. I’m sure there’s a place for that. I have no problem with that. I have no problem with that. He just doesn’t really let me do that. And from time to time, there have been things that have been lit up, you know, about current events that He’s, you know…. Certainly John has had a couple of them where he’s had really beautiful insight about the Charleston shooting and things of that nature. And I know he gave me one for the elementary school shooting a couple of years ago. So, there are times when he does that, but it’s rare. So, if that’s the modus operandi for most other people, then we are not that. We’re occasionally touching down in that, but the rest of the time… I don’t know if anybody has any interest in what I’m talking about or not. And He also is using that to kill off my focus on other people, that even if only one person likes it or comments on it, or whatever, are you ok with that? Are you ok for writing and getting what feels, what can feel like rejection from every other reader for just that one person? And that’s really where He brings me to each and every time. And I think about that, Martha, and I think about it. And I say, “Well, that’s just me coming into the fold, coming down from how you write and how He writes in you, which is you have always said, “Shulamite Ministries is a ministry for Jesus Christ, for His needs, what He wants to say, where He wants to go, and who He wants to disciple or who He wants to love. It’s entirely His to do with. And it’s one thing to say, “Oh, yes, yes, that’s wonderful.” It’s another thing to realize that He’s bringing… Because you said yes to that, that He’s bringing you into that particular, because it’s a completely different way of looking at things; completely different way of looking at things. And it’s not my natural way of looking at things. That’s the truth, because so much of what He does is going to bring bubble and boil and toil and trouble, you know? I just… yeah. And it has to die somehow, but it’s amazing to me as you’re talking about this and to see even with John. John gets clearer every time he writes. Carole, her last couple of posts have just been, oh, so rich and personal at the same time, completely personal. Like Carole’s heart is actually right there, you know. And that’s how you write. So it’s fascinating to me that He’s moving that out into the Body, because that is our mission. “We, the sheep of His pasture, we’re going to give Him thanks and publish His praise from generation to generation.” Well, and that means to publish the discovery of His Person, because Who else do you praise? You don’t praise a random Scripture.
(Martha) The word that keeps coming to mind as you’re speaking is spontaneity. If you’ve got the system down, there’s nothing living or spontaneous. The essence of life is that it is spontaneous. This, most would never dream. John gets these posts as he’s driving the car, and he uses his phone to record it, and it comes out of him so spontaneous ly from the Spirit, that he can take that recording into the computer and virtually it is written word for word. Is that not right, John? Pretty much? Umhmm, many times. And life rises in him while he’s driving and he just picks up the phone, keeps driving and records. And it is that note thing that’s writing it out for you; dictation. It’s actually dictation. So, it’s spontaneous, and if Jesus was anything, He was utterly spontaneous. And they say, you know, that is the highest of maturity is to be spontaneous. That is the most, highest level of human maturity is to be real, that real; andss to be willing to live responding to life and to the Spirit, and to each other in pure spontaneity. So that’s what you’re talking about, really. Life is just, it just happens.

The Spontaneous Mind of Christ -Episode #474 – Shulamite Ministries