Discovering Wisdom in Chaos: A Construct for a New Reality

By PhD Carolyn D. Showell

We must recognize the new order that is hiding within these chaotic times. 

Any crisis that shuts down and upends every sector of society, including the Church, provides an opportunity for growth. Inspired by her widely-attended lecture series, "The God Talks," Discovering Wisdom

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trilogy Christian Publishing
• Release date: Mar 23, 2023
• ISBN: 9798887385860

PhD Carolyn D. Showell

A lifelong student, Dr. Carolyn D. Showell received her BA from Goucher College in Towson, Maryland; her master of divinity degree from Union Theological Seminary of New York; and her Ph.D. in counseling psychology from the Carolina University of Theology. She has completed all course requirements for a second doctorate in Judaic and Rabbinic studies at the Baltimore Hebrew University at Towson State University. Carolyn is a certified Christian therapist and pastoral counselor, as well as a church transformation consultant to many of our country's most dynamic ministries.

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Discovering

Wisdom in

Chaos

A Construct for a New Reality

Carolyn D. Showell, PhD

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Discovering Wisdom in Chaos: A Construct for a New Reality

Trilogy Christian Publishers

A Wholly Owned Subsidiary of Trinity Broadcasting Network

2442 Michelle Drive, Tustin, CA 92780

Copyright © 2023 Carolyn D. Showell

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are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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are taken from the JPS Hebrew–English Tanakh, Jewish Publication Society, 1999, 2nd edition.

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are taken from the King James Version of the Bible. Public domain.

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Manufactured in the United States of America

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN#: 979-8-88738-585-3

E-ISBN#: 979-8-88738-586-0

Contents

Acknowledgments

Preface

Introduction

1. The Process of Renewal

2. The Need for Pnuematological Education

3. Radical Amazement

4. When Do New Beginnings Begin?

5. The Centrality of the Word

6. The Supernatural Frequency of the Holy Spirit

7. Blessed from Day One

8. Is Everything Important?

9. Kavanah: Life Beyond Distractions

10. The Spirit-Birthed Blueprint

References and Suggested Reading

About the Author

Endnotes

Acknowledgments

First and foremost, I thank God, whose hand stayed upon me, like a loving father encouraging his daughter on her first driving lesson.

I also acknowledge the loving memory of my parents. Bishop Winfield and Genevieve Showell, I am because of you. To my sisters and brothers who were cheering me on from heaven and to my family, you are my world. My love for you is everlasting.

To my lifelong friends, Bishop Jimmy Woodson, Bishop Ann Pratt, Bishop Jacqueline McCullough, Dr. Juanita Bynum, Dr. Jeanne Porter King, and Dr. JoAnn Browning, and to the sisterhood, you are some of the greatest women on God’s earth. He loves His daughters too!

To my sisters in ministry who are now resting from their labor but are never forgotten: Dr. Carolyn Harrell, Evangelist Jackie Rumph, Evangelist Juanita Sapp, Evangelist Joyce Rogers, Bishop Ernestine Reems, and Bishop Iona E. Locke.

My heart is forever grateful to the team. Without you, this would not have happened! Deepest thanks to Levolia Johnson, Joel Lofton, Gregory Johnson, Shea Stansbury, and James McBride.

To the library staff at Goucher College; Towson State University; St. Mary’s Seminary; University of Maryland, Baltimore County; and the Bon Secour Retreat Center. You broke all the rules just for me!

To my editor, Jennifer LuVert Lee, and Forerunners Ink. You are an invaluable gift to those of us who desire to become authors. Thank you!

To the people of God everywhere, thank you for stretching me to become more.

Special thanks to Bishop T.D. and Lady Serita Jakes—I stand forever amazed! And to Bishop John R. Bryant, who always told me to write the book, thank you.

To my brother, Paul, I wrote the book!

Preface

My heart was deeply troubled. In my thoughts fire burns; I became even more troubled. Then, I spoke out!

—Psalm 39:3,

Tanakh

I am an unapologetic Pentecostal Apostolic traditionalist. I believe in and am totally committed to the tradition I have inherited. This is the denomination for which my ancestors, parents, and family have lived and died. My tradition matters to me. It is for these reasons I have had to become brave enough to look deep enough into those practices within the faith I could no longer biblically proclaim and support. And my struggle with unscriptural regulations became stronger as it became harder to hold two contradictory impulses in my understanding. I earnestly wanted to protect the tradition. But I could no longer justify some things to God, myself, a body of believers, and a world in which our efforts only lead people to our sacred idols.

Rather than reject the tradition, as many have, my engrafted commitment would not allow me to do likewise. Instead, I elected to no longer be spiritually and theologically tone-deaf. I can no longer defy contextual incorrectness and practical applications that only fuel the dismantling of the foundations upon which this great tradition is built. History cannot record that we disapproved but contributed nothing to improve and strengthen what has become meaningless mendacities.

We have always been saturated by great earth-moving preachers, both male and female. But during these times, where are the teachers? Where are those who learn and teach lessons from the Spirit with the Bible as the primary reference book?

This work is the result of travailing within the tradition, and it is written with the pen of one still enthralled in a deep relationship nurtured by end-time possibilities—because the glory of the Latter House, filled with holy promises and power, is yet awaiting us.

Therefore, I share with you the conversations of a travailer, one who speaks from a triumphant heart. I am no longer afraid to have the necessary conversations, those required to interrupt the unholy habits that have arrested our minds, progress, and sustainability. For this generation and those to come, I fight for the reset, such that we give to our children the Church and to the world the salvation, justice, and grace for which Jesus and our fore-parents died. A new class is in session for those who will allow… the Teacher to teach.

Introduction

This work is a collection of lectures I felt impressed to present during the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic. After observing the many efforts to navigate such an unprecedented experience, the God Talks series was birthed.

The audience was a devoted group of online students who signed up through my social media platform to attend the class. For eight weeks, The God Talks provided an invaluable atmosphere of engagement for men and women eager to grow even in the midst of confinement.

I have found the task of sharing on this topic both exhilarating and exhausting, simply because acquired understanding only opens the door to acquired misunderstandings. For this reason, the subject matters have been intentionally selected. I am aware that each subject has more in-depth bodies of information from which to garner. By no means do I offer you an exhaustive inquiry. What I do offer is an inter-systematic approach by which to define and interpret the changing vicissitudes of these strange times within the biblical context of the wisdom of God taught to us by the chaos of creation.

The primary goal of this presentation is to emphasize the relevancy of the Word of God, His presence, and His power during these times of uncertainties. I aim to emphasize the similarities and consistencies within the biblical text and our present real-life experiences. I suggest that you read this material dimensionally. With clear intent, I travel between then and now, us and them, the natural and the spiritual. You will see that what could be considered as a dichotomy is instead the symbiosis of an interdependent relationship, one that exists as a continuum predestined to produce holiness and wholeness in the processes of human growth and development. The biblical text provides the steps and stages that demonstrate the construct for life on higher and more masterful levels. This presentation is germane to that construct. It is God’s ordained construct that will usher us to, guide us through, keep us in the midst of, and show us the door of escape, out of this and all our difficult experiences. This biblical blueprint is designed not only to allow us to learn about God, but to pull us into His presence, where, rather than His condemnation and punishment, we experience more of His unconditional love and saving grace.

The second goal of this work is to galvanize both the head and the heart to arouse the reader from a numbing sleep caused by restrictions and imposed limitations that are contradictions to our God-given nature. However, such restrictions and limitations are not specific to the pandemic. Many of these restraints have long been taught as doctrinal precepts and scriptural truths, only for us to later discover that mixed in with the truth were false humanistic suppositions of oppression that caused us to be at peace with powerlessness. My desire is that this presentation will serve as an instrument of liberation, pushing us to start thinking again as we navigate through our reset process… together.

However, the reader must be careful not to merely feel energized and motivated. Indeed, those are positive and provoking emotions. But additionally, he or she must become mobilized into new being and then doing. To this end, I propose that knowing God, His Word,