Warren: You know we were talking a little bit earlier about what’s natural and what is supernatural. You know, you have more of a natural tendency in what you believe and in the way your personality fits. You have a tendency to be more realistic and more natural. With me I’m more spiritual and more mystically inclined and there has to be a happy medium and I think when you were saying that the natural is the way to be….what were you saying about that?
Yvonne: Well, first of all, to clarify that, you know we hear all the time from preachers that we’re a new creature and the Bible tells us we’re a new creature. Well, being natural is like looking at a cat washing her face, licking her paw. We don’t look twice at that because that is natural for the cat to do that. That is what I mean when I speak of ”natural”. I don’t mean that natural is fleshly and worldly. I mean natural is our new state. We walk our daily life….
Warren: You say new state. You mean there is a new state of natural and an old state of natural?
Yvonne: Yes, I think so. I think when you are living for the world and your own pleasures, your “natural” inclination is to do whatever suits you, to do whatever feels good and whatever the world says and get involved in all the hype or whatever. Your natural state may be to go to bars if that is what you like. Your natural walking out your life will be setting your own goals and not caring about anything else.
Warren: In other words, it’s self-centered?
Yvonne: Yes, it can be. However, some people can spend their whole life giving to others in food programs and other beneficial endeavors.
Warren: Entrepreneurial.
Yvonne: Well, in any case, that is their natural state. They are either givers or takers, but it is not based on the new creation life.
Warren: It’s not Christ-centered.
Yvonne: Right. So once we become new creatures then our natural state has changed to where …..
Warren: We have a new nature.
Yvonne. Yes.
Warren: In other words, we act different, like the metamorphosis of a butterfly starting out as a caterpillar and acting like a worm and crawling around and eating leaves and then they get into the cocoon state and they change and come out as a butterfly which is their new nature.
Yvonne: Then, to see them groveling around on the ground would be un-natural. So their new natural state is to fly and you don’t become alarmed when you see a butterfly flying.
Warren: No, because that is their nature.
Yvonne: That’s what they do.
Warren: And you can hardly remember when you see a butterfly flying, that they used to be a crawling around worm. Like that old grub worm. Then when you see the worm crawling around, you don’t think of them as a butterfly.
Yvonne: or ask why aren’t they flying? So this is my basis, when I am talking about being natural, I am saying it should come so naturally to us that we don’t have to think twice. I started to tell you about being in a car with a preacher friend and he turned around and said something prophetic to me specifically and it struck me so impressively because we weren’t at the altar, we didn’t have special music going, worshipping, or talking specifically about the Lord. We may have been having a discussion. I don’t remember. It wasn’t anything we were doing when something came to him prophetically and I remarked to him “You didn’t have to get worked up into a spiritual “state” to give a prophecy. It came out of you naturally.”
Warren: In other words, it was just a natural tone, it wasn’t a “thus saith the Lord, thou art this or that....”.
Yvonne: Right.
Warren: And so, that would be natural.
Yvonne: to your new state. For instance, if you’re at work and you say something to somebody, you may really be helping the person. I think the most effective thing that ever happens is when you don’t know you have done any good for somebody. Because it is coming out of you very naturally, it is how you think and how you respond to the people around you.
Warren:Maybe it’s not necessarily what you speak but your actions as well. I mean your actions are probably more…
Yvonne: That’s true but I am thinking in the terms of prophetically, like he turned around and spoke to me. He didn’t say, let’s pray, let’s get into a worship mode because God wants to speak. No, he just spoke what came to him. That would be the same as doing a household task and a thought suddenly comes to “go to your neighbor with some food”. You do it. You don’t stop and think about it but just do it. It’s coming naturally and you are obeying easily.
Warren: You just have a natural desire to want to go do these things for your neighbor because you feel that inside, you’re not being forced by duty or obligation. It’s something that you really long and desire to do. It is something that comes out of you as natural.
Yvonne: That’s true, but in the case of the Lord speaking, it may be a one time happening. It’s not that you go around saying, oh who can I help today, I have such a desire to help somebody. No, I am talking about a specific action that you automatically do. Because it’s your nature, you just do it. You move into it and you don’t even stop and think, oooh the Lord told me to do that. You just do it because it is natural to follow that little inner voice that you are not even thinking about, it’s just happening. To me that is being natural. That’s being the new life in us at work. Because you don’t have to be at the altar, you don’t have to be on your knees to have these things happen. You don’t have to be “religious”. But because you have a relationship with the Lord, you have become more sensitive to his voice.
Warren: You can be in the most unpredictable situations. Like a lot of times God speaks to me in the shower, and I wonder why would he do that? Or when I am shaving something really neat comes to me. You wouldn’t think that God would speak to you when you are doing normal things. You would have to be in a holy state, in a holy atmosphere.
Yvonne: That is where I object to that because I think that’s where religion has affected a lot of people. God put in us a hunger for him and we mess it up by being “religious”. We go back to works then and feel that we have to do something to be spiritual. That’s my objection. We have our own language, Christianese like Rick Godwin says. We have our own gang. We have our own gang symbols and….
Warren: Bumper stickers….
Yvonne: and methods of operations.
To be continued….
