From Outfit to Infit, Input to Output

[HKHaugan]

From Outfit to Infit, Output to Input

 The Word calls us to start within to make genuine what is done without.  Jesus has just called disciples to follow Him.  A crowd has come to hear Him, and many were healed.  Early the next morning while it is still dark, He goes out to pray alone.  The disciples searched for Him because everyone was looking for Him.  When they did, He responded, “Let us go somewhere else---to nearby villages so I can preach there also.  That is why I have come (Mk.1:35-38).” 

When you think about this it may seem Mark is just recording an event but there’s more.  There’s always more in the words of Scripture.  It’s the input that shapes the output.  The input is the Holy Spirit getting us to ponder its depths.  That pondering has a basic word to describe it, prayer.  When Jesus was praying, He was pondering the relationship He had with His Father.  He was pondering His Father’s will.  He was pondering what He should do in response.  Prayer is spiritual pondering.  He believed prayer was the way to meet with His Father alone within.  Mark showed He pondered who He was, trusting what the Scripture was saying and what He should do about it.

 The thing about pondering spiritually, we do it all the time.  It is not just in a formal service or following a systematic word order, or someone else’s elegant expressions.  Every thought we have is a process inside our mind, heart and spirit.  Every human being ponders, basing it on some value they have accepted.  It’s another wonderful gift from the Creator.  However, when it is designed to be personal and relational, someone else is involved.  That is the point at which we either trust God, ourselves or some social standard as the final point of reference.   We either ponder what God says or deceptive ‘common sense,’ man’s imperfect wisdom.

 This is where the Lord Jesus becomes the path to spiritual reality and the way to enter it.    The Mark passage gives us Jesus’ own process.   He goes off alone.  He talks with His Father about His will.  His motivation and action are the result of the Holy Spirit’s presence in Him.  We know what He pondered by what He did.   His reaction when the disciples found Him was not about their anxiety but about what they were to do together, “Let us go somewhere else---to the nearby villages, so I can preach there also.  That is why I have come.”  Three things are obvious.  He pondered why He was there, where He was to go and what He was to do, and His disciples were to follow Him.  A simple pattern of behavior arrived at spiritually. 

 This pattern of behavior is basic to all of us.  We ponder within using conversational language.  We find many of us ‘talk to ourselves.’  That is exactly how God wants us to talk with Him as we ponder our schedule, our day ahead, the issues we face, the unexpected, the pleasant and the unpleasant.  Talking to the Father is a child talking to His spiritual Parent. Human issues are far too complicated for us to figure out alone.  But we are not spiritually alone.  Especially when we ponder before the Father with Jesus guiding us. It is in the pondering that the Spirit gives us the call.  The call is to get up and go in faith, knowing who you are spiritually, being what you have to be spiritually, doing what you have to do spiritually, when you have no idea what lies ahead.   Pondering with God, through His Son Jesus, in the power of the Spirit, walking each step by faith.   His input became His output.  That’s the way Jesus did it and why He is the Way.