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stepping
stones a prayer letter of Iwa
Transforming Ministry and Leadership in our Community
November 2000, Number 00-2
The Gorilla, the Lion and the Wildness of God
Reflections on the Iwa Annual Meeting by Dave
Shinoda
I
was both entertained and challenged by Stan’s devotional
thought at Iwa’s Annual Meeting. This provided a first
for me. I don’t ever recall getting goose bumps at a
“business meeting” before.
In
his devotional, Stan shared about his shift in his percep-tion
of the Holy Spirit. There was a time when he had thought of
the Holy Spirit as Jiminy Cricket, sitting on our shoulders
offering quiet, but well-timed course corrections as we pretty
much went about our daily tasks. He related how in recent
days he had come to see the Holy Spirit more as Mighty Joe
Young. For those, like myself, who did not see the movie,
from Stan’s description, Mighty Joe Young can be described
as a gorilla, bigger than Sylvester Stallone, and smaller
than Godzilla, with far more charm and capacity for affection
than either.
The
image is an inversion of the Jiminy Cricket image. Instead
of us leading and the Holy Spirit’s still small voice
whispering navigational changes, we go where the gorilla says
we go. Then I felt the goose bumps.
While
I had never met the gorilla, I have met others who stirred
in my heart the same kind of excitement and gave me the same
goose bumps.
The
image that came to mind was a still picture that was stirring
with movement and life. I saw a majestic lion, galloping through
the fields of the magical place on the other side of the wardrobe,
brought to life from the imagination of C.S. Lewis in The
Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The place was Narnia,
and the lion’s name was Aslan.
The
scene took place just after Aslan had allowed himself to be
ransomed by the evil White Witch and her mob. The White Witch
had enslaved the land under a spell that reduced Narnia to
a place where it was always winter and never Christmas. Aslan
was the single hope of the inhabitants of Narnia of reversing
the curse. By slaying Aslan, and disgracing him by cutting
off his majestic mane, the White Witch was sure that she had
secured Narnia under her spell.
When
sisters Lucy and Susan came to retrieve the body of their
friend Aslan, they found that he was gone.
Out
of nowhere, Aslan jumps out of the wooded area, his majestic
mane fully restored. The lion and the sisters celebrate his
return with a joyous game of tag. But there is much yet to
be done if Narnia is to be restored.
Then
he invites the two sisters to get on his back and hold on
to his mane for dear life as he gallops and leaps through
the woods of Narnia towards the Witch’s castle to set
the captives free.
“The Witch’s home!” Aslan
cried, “Now children, hold tight.” Next moment
the whole world seemed to turn upside down, and the children
felt as if they had left their insides behind them; for
the Lion had gathered himself together for a greater leap
than any had yet made and jumped—or you may call it
flying rather than jumping— right over the castle wall.
The two girls, breathless but unhurt, found themselves tumbling
off his backin the middle of a wide courtyard full of statues.
(C.S. Lewis. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.)
It
got me wondering, when the last time was that an encounter
with God stole my breath away and gave me goose bumps. As
I listened to Stan and thought of Aslan, I began to consider
what Brent Curtis describes as “the wildness of God”.
When
we think of God being good, we perhaps picture someone like
Al on the popular TV program, Home Improvement. He is someone
who carefully plans out each task ahead of time and has
all the proper tools and safety equipment in place; someone
who has thought out every possible danger ahead of time
and made allowances to ensure our safety as his workmate;
someone who goes to bed early gets plenty of rest, and wears
flannel shirts as a mark of his reliability. Being in partnership
with God, though, often feels much more like being Mel Gibson’s
partner in the movie, Lethal Weapon. In his determi-nation
to deal with bad guys, he leaps from seventh story balconies
into swimming pools, surprised that we would have any hesitation
in following after him. Like Indiana Jones’ love interests
in the movies, we find ourselves caught up in an adventure
of heroic propor-tions with a God who both seduces us with
his boldness and energy and repels us with his willingness
to place us in mortal danger, suspended over a pit of snakes.
(Brent Curtis and John Eldredge. The Sacred Romance.)
By
seeing the Holy Spirit as a gorilla I was chal-lenged to look
beyond my natural tendency to settle for a safe and predictable
God who tells me what I want to hear and doesn’t do anything
to make me uncomfortable. I was reminded that before God leads
me into His purposes He often has to subdue my natural desire
to be in control. I recalled the times when God had to drag
me kicking and screaming into situations that I never would
have chosen as part of my own life script.
I
find myself both frightened and excited about my next encounter
with a God who can steal my breath away and leave me with
goose bumps— frightened of what He will do and excited
about the possibilities.
From
Jiminy to Mighty Joe
by Stan Inouye
(from a devotional delivered at Iwa's Annual Meeting on October
14, 2000)
Recently
I made a huge paradigm shift. For most of my Christian life,
when I needed to find out God’s will, I would relate
to the Holy Spirit as Jiminy Cricket. He sat on my shoulder,
right next to my ear—like the voice of conscience. I
think I got this idea from that famous phrase about the “still
small voice of God.” In any case, Jiminy Cricket would
whisper in my ear, “Ah, ah, ah!” or “No, no,
no!” Sometimes he would say “Be careful now....
watch your step....dangerous territory!” Other times,
he would say “Go, go, go” or “Way to go."
Jiminy would always go with me and be my helper.
If
I was having a problem, I would turn to Jiminy and ask him
what I should do. Then I would make the correc-tion and move
on. Basically, the burden was on me to get the job done. But
usually I didn’t. I would crash and burn along the way.
So, I would ask him for a new project I could get excited
about—a new start. But after a while, I'd crash and burn
again. As time went on, I found a big pile of what I believed
to be failures and fruitlessness. The only way to deal with
the situation was to try again and again, take on new projects
and work harder. Ultimately, I fizzled. It’s not that
the projects were the wrong ones. I later found out they were
the right projects. They were from the Lord. He intended to
see them suc-cessful. However, the only way that could happen
wasif I changed the way I related to the Holy Spirit.
This
change came when I started to see to the Holy Spirit more
like Mighty Joe Young, instead of Jiminy Cricket. From a movie
by the same name, Mighty Joe Young is a huge gorilla, kind
of like King Kong. This monstrous gorilla is extremely protective
of the beautiful young woman who raised him from the time
he was a small, orphaned baby. He is extremely loving, gentle
and tender toward the young woman, but fiercely aggressive
toward anyone who might threaten her safety. Well, I have
come to realize instead of Jiminy Cricket being on my shoulder,
Mighty Joe Young—the Holy Spirit—invites me to be
on his. It’s a whole different ball game when you’re
going through the jungle of life on your own two feet, with
the help and guidance of Jiminy Cricket, versus going through
the jungle perched on the shoulder of Mighty Joe Young. The
jungle, with its ferocious unknown monsters, is not as fearsome
with Mighty Joe clearing the way ahead of you.
With
this image of the Holy Spirit, I have a much easier time believing
such verses and biblical concepts as “If God is for
me, who can be against me”or “God hasn’t given
us a spirit of fear, but of love, power and a sound mind,”
especially the power part. How about when the Lord says, “I
will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail
against it” or “Greater is he that is in
you than he that is in the world”? You mean I’m
not only sitting on the gorilla’s shoulder, but the gorilla
is in me? Wow! Okay, now I can see why “I can do all
things through the Gorilla who strengthens me.” Got the
picture?
Another
picture I would like to share with you is the dynamic of what
I call “spiritual drafting.” When my daughter Heather
and I went camping up in the Sierras, we took one of those
two-lane, back road shortcuts. Well, wouldn’t you know
it. We got behind a huge truck, full of hay that bulged out
over both sides. I couldn’t see around the truck and
my car has no “oomph,” so I couldn’t pass.
Hay kept flying off the top and sides into our windshield.
The lane was so narrow and the truck so wide that dust and
dirt came whipping around the side of the truck over the soft
shoulder. The only way we could avoid the shower of dirt and
debris was to either drop back and follow from a distance
or get up close and follow right on the truck’s behind.
We found the best place to be was right behind the truck—where
there was a place of calm and, in the vacuum, you actually
get pulled along.
What
we are talking about here is the same dynamic that long distance
runners, swimmers and cyclists use to conserve their energy.
It is called “drafting.” An athlete is drafting
when he closely follows the lead athlete who takes the brunt
of the wind or water resistance. As the lead breaks through
the air or water, he creates a wake— waves which travel
out on either side like a wedge of turbulence radiating out
on both sides behind the athlete. This creates a pocket of
less resistance and more calm right behind that enables those
who follow to run, swim or bike with less effort, consuming
less energy. However,
if the person doing the drafting falls back, they actually
end up in more turbulence than if they were in the lead because
the wake converges once again behind the lead.
Now
let’s apply this same principle to our analogy of the
Holy Spirit being like Jiminy Cricket or Mighty Joe Young.
Drafting behind an itty bitty cricket doesn’t do you
much good at all. Crickets don’t break much wind resistance.
But, drafting behind a gorilla, that’s a different story
because the bigger the lead, the more resistance is broken.
So then, what is the best way to find out and fulfill the
will of God for our lives? By following the Gorilla as closely
as possible. This is what Jesus meant when he said to Peter
and Andrew in Matthew 4:19, “Come, follow me...and
I will make you fishers of men.” He did not say,
“Make yourselves fishers of men and I’ll back you
up all the way.”
In
the past, once I found out what the Lord wanted me to do,
I had the tendency to jump ahead of him and try to do it on
my own. My motives were good. I was moving in the right direction.
I worked hard. But then I would poop out because I was taking
the lead and trying to break the head wind of spiritual resistance
myself. After that I would often drop way back, still moving
in same direction, but drained of energy and emotion. And
to top it off, drained of joy and vulnerable to attack, I
would be hit with all kinds of obstacles and cross currents
that would threaten to divert or derail me from the path—
the path that was still God’s will for me, but I was
follow-ing in the wrong way.
After
all these years of fluctuating between going ahead of God
or dropping too far back, I am finally learn-ing to follow
close behind. It is there in the shadow of Mighty Joe Young—the
Spirit of the Risen Christ—that I can get to know him
and hear his voice. By getting to know God, especially through
Jesus, I have become more and more sensitive to the sound
of His voice, which is so clear and consistent with His character
and the way he has worked in the past, both the Biblical past
and my own past together with him. The other voices I hear
have become more distant, strange and blurred. I am now more
capable of differentiating when advice, a dream, or an opportunity
is the voice of God, rather than simply human advice, a dream,
a chance happen-ing, or worse—the voice of Satan trying
to divert or derail me.
So
now I can more closely follow him as He follows the heavenly
Father. As Jesus said, “I only do what I see the Father
doing,” so I can say, “ I only do what I see
Jesus doing.” In fact, when times really get rough I
don’t just follow him, I climb onto Mighty Joe’s
back and hang on for dear life. The interesting thing is,
the more I have come to relate to the Holy Spirit as Mighty
Joe Young instead of Jiminy Cricket, I find myself asking
him fewer and fewer questions about His will and direc-tion
for my life. Like that huge hay truck, he's so big I can’t
see around him. So I don’t know where the road is going,
but I don’t really mind because wherever I am going,
I’m not going alone. He knows where we are going. He’s
going to get us there. And that’s all that matters.
Following
the Gorilla Up and Down the Coast
October 1 — President Stan Inouye
was the guest speaker at the worship service of Christian
Layman Church in Oakland. Asked to address the topic, “Learning
to Listen,” he first shared insights on the two passages
of Scripture suggested in the published Bible study series
on God’s will, Deciding Wisely, which the congregation
was going through. In the second half of the message, he departed
completely from the traditional approach to the topic which
the series takes, and presented a new paradigm for discerning
the Lord’s will (see the article, “From Jiminy
to Mighty Joe”). During this period of transi-tion
for Layman, following their senior pastor’s departure
to plant a church in Seattle, perhaps this insight can pro-vide
a new way of “listening” to the Lord as they seek
to see what He’s already doing, and follow His lead.
October
6-8 — Executive Director Cyril Nishimoto spoke at the
Fall Conference of Seattle’s Faith Bible Church. Celebrating
its 50th Anniversary, Faith Bible made this conference different
from others by inviting two outside speakers to lead afternoon
seminars. As one of those seminar leaders, Cyril offered his
own testimony about getting to know the Lord, as well as about
how the Lord led him from secular work to ministry at Iwa,
and shared some Iwa insights on personal evangelism. After
the conference, He was also invited to share the same in-sights
with the church planting team from Faith Bible, led by Iwa
Board member and former senior pastor of Christian Layman
Church, Wayne Ogimachi.
November
12 — Cyril was also invited to speak at the worship service
of Los Angeles Holiness Church. Sharing on the topic of “Telling
Our Stories,” he told the story of his own personal journey
with Christ, the story of how the Lord led him to Iwa, and
the story of the two sons whose hearts were turned away from
their father’s in Luke 15’s Prodigal Son parable
which pre-sents a relational view of sin that Asian Americans
could relate to. He encouraged the congregation to try this
relational approach to evangelism of introducing one person
whom they know and love—their family member or friend—to
another person whom they know and love—Jesus Christ.
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