Song of Solomon 1:16
How handsome you are my beloved, And so pleasant! Indeed our couch is luxuriant!
I remember feeling an increasing need and pressure to get somewhere away with the Lord. He'll do that....woo you..draw you away to Himself. His desire is for you. You were made to love and be loved. The church has settled for the back of His head, and He wants face to face. Intimacy, nothing less will satisfy, Him or us.
I started thinking about a retreat center I had visited a couple times years ago. It was accessible and cheap. I went the first time, and really it wasn't what you would call electrifying. I struggled the entire 2 days trying to relax and let go of my life. I napped...I was bored...I struggled to "do" spiritual things. Read my bible, do devotions, worship, whatever. Finally after a couple of these "retreats" I realized I needed to ask the Lord what "He" wanted. Surprisingly...He didn't want anything. He wanted to be with me. And He wanted me to be with Him. Just enjoy Him.
What?What?
Try it. See if you think that's easy.
We are so programmed for performance, it felt like the most un-natural thing in the world. It felt downright unfaithful.
But I began to obey. Oh...it was up and down, touch and go. But now...the first thing that happens when I roll into the driveway at my retreat center, is I feel the world peel off. The weight comes off my shoulders, and my life is left at the entrance to the road. It's just me and Jesus.
Next, I go in, throw my stuff into my room and then I...A. commune with God in the woods...B. worship Him in song...C. read at least 2 chapters of the bible, or D....Take a nap.
Correct!!! D....take a nap! It's part of the Lord's strategy to rest you up and teach you to let go and come to His feet. I'm getting pretty quick about de-stressing anymore. I love that it is becoming more automatic. It's actually starting to work in my everyday life, as I can come to His feet as many times a day as I want. It very sweet in my retreat home, but it's great here also. I just tend to pick it back up quicker here. But our "luxuriant couch" is wherever I take time to recline on His chest and just be with Him.
Did you know God loves you, and if you really love Him, you are a success? That's what He is after, your heart. It's Jesus plus nothing. You may be a CEO, a priest, a janitor, the president of a nation, an evangelist...those are all just jobs. Task's. They are not "who" you are. You were made for God. That identity is what your life is really about. Search that out. But take time for the traveling couch. That's the One Thing.
Psalm 27:4
One thing I have asked from the Lord, one thing I shall seek; That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to meditate in His temple.
We become what we behold. Look at the beauty of Jesus...really look at it. Study it..meditate on it. You will be changed.
2 Corinthians 3:18
But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Monday, March 29, 2010
The Year of Loving Dangerously -
I really think my "year" started last year. I'll have to go back into my journal's to find things to share here. So much has happened, it's hard to know where to start. But what I really want to share, is not so much what has happened to me, or what we do, but what God does as we leap. It's His faithfulness, already so evident in our lives...so that while I encourage myself by recounting that, maybe it will encourage someone else also. Thanks Suzanne, for your encouragement. It is a type of "standing stone" to put down an account of what God does in your life. We are supposed to "remember and tell" of God's goodness.
I'll start by telling this one little story. A few years ago I found myself in a terrible depression. So much so, that though I have struggled with depression since I was about 13 years old, I could no longer pull myself out as I used to. I remember God speaking to my heart months earlier telling me He was going to teach me to "rest" in Him. (SOME rest, I thought!) I had no real clue what that meant at the time, though I thought I did. To truly rest "in" God, we rest "from" ourselves. To do that, He allowed this period, where I no longer had anything to give Him. I couldn't be more, do more or give more..much of what the Christian church preaches. I was at the end of myself...which is where He wanted me. He can't do much in our lives till we are at that very place. So with my head on my kitchen table....literally....I remember telling God, like David, "where else do I turn for life...you alone are God. I know that without doubt, and I have no where else to turn but you." It was the cry of disappointment in God. He appeared to be doing nothing. But He was underground and very busy, as I was to find out later. I started seeing signs....everywhere I went.."Behold, I'm doing a new thing." I would hear it on the Radio, see it quoted in a book, I actually saw it on an electronic sign going down the highway! After a while I stopped counting how many times God brought that scripture to my eye's. It got so that it really made me smile, then laugh out loud. At the flashing electronic sign, I said, "ok, ok!! I get it!! Your doing a New Thing! And thus began my rest.
Isaiah 30:15a
For thus the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, has said, "In repentance and rest you will be saved, In quietness and trust is your strength."......
I'll start by telling this one little story. A few years ago I found myself in a terrible depression. So much so, that though I have struggled with depression since I was about 13 years old, I could no longer pull myself out as I used to. I remember God speaking to my heart months earlier telling me He was going to teach me to "rest" in Him. (SOME rest, I thought!) I had no real clue what that meant at the time, though I thought I did. To truly rest "in" God, we rest "from" ourselves. To do that, He allowed this period, where I no longer had anything to give Him. I couldn't be more, do more or give more..much of what the Christian church preaches. I was at the end of myself...which is where He wanted me. He can't do much in our lives till we are at that very place. So with my head on my kitchen table....literally....I remember telling God, like David, "where else do I turn for life...you alone are God. I know that without doubt, and I have no where else to turn but you." It was the cry of disappointment in God. He appeared to be doing nothing. But He was underground and very busy, as I was to find out later. I started seeing signs....everywhere I went.."Behold, I'm doing a new thing." I would hear it on the Radio, see it quoted in a book, I actually saw it on an electronic sign going down the highway! After a while I stopped counting how many times God brought that scripture to my eye's. It got so that it really made me smile, then laugh out loud. At the flashing electronic sign, I said, "ok, ok!! I get it!! Your doing a New Thing! And thus began my rest.
Isaiah 30:15a
For thus the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, has said, "In repentance and rest you will be saved, In quietness and trust is your strength."......
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Valley's of Complacency
And to expose our hearts to truth and consistently refuse or neglect to obey the impulses it arouses is to stymie the motions of life within us and, if persisted in, to grieve the Holy Spirit into silence.
A.W.Tozer
For the first time in my adult life, I feel like I'm obeying those impulses of life, imparted by the Holy Spirit. You have to train yourself to really listen and not be entertained by the messages at church, or the books you read. If Jesus said He would spew the lukewarm church out of His mouth, then they are not saved...He is certainly not embracing the Lukewarm "believer". I think we need to seriously contemplate the question, "am I really saved?" Not to create fear, and to work harder, but to go the mat with God and wrestle it out, and test ourselves.
A.W.Tozer
For the first time in my adult life, I feel like I'm obeying those impulses of life, imparted by the Holy Spirit. You have to train yourself to really listen and not be entertained by the messages at church, or the books you read. If Jesus said He would spew the lukewarm church out of His mouth, then they are not saved...He is certainly not embracing the Lukewarm "believer". I think we need to seriously contemplate the question, "am I really saved?" Not to create fear, and to work harder, but to go the mat with God and wrestle it out, and test ourselves.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
God Dreams
Brad sent me a great article this morning on a guy who lost his job, and couldn't find another so pursued his dream of professional bowling. (I know...but it's his dream....). Point being he made $50,000 winning a pro bowl event, more than he had ever made in a single year. The message pointed out that sometimes our secure paychecks can keep us from pursuing our dreams.
Being that God seems to have Brad and I on this journey of putting all our security in Him alone, and letting go of our lives, this was encouraging to me, and all the more when I realize, the dreams I have, come from God Himself, as years ago, I gave Him permission to burn mine, (which He faithfully did, the smell of smoke still lingering in my nostrils even after all these years) along with anything else that wasn't of Him in my life. So in my humanness...I find myself more than a little fearful at times at what I'm doing, but in my spirit, I'm at peace...when I let Him give it, that is. The peace that just doesn't make sense.. ( my translation of the peace that passes all understanding.)
I wondered when we got home how on earth we would find people to help us. I have learned recently that you don't go out looking for them God just has them call you at home on your phone! :-D
The Lord has connected us with someone who heard about our dreams, and feels it is his portion of the job to provide the space for a House of Prayer, (he's already offered temporary housing, free of charge, not even utility payments...woohoo!) and when we told him about calling about a couple old hotels up for sale, he said he had his realtor call about both of them, the same two we were looking at, two days before! So God not only will give you a dream, His dream, He will plant it in others also, and bring you together to carry it out. I have no clue what the future holds....but when I'm standing on this side of the Red Sea....I really wished I could have praised Him ahead of time, on the other side. Trusting and walking by faith is hard....even though at every turn He shows me His goodness. I'm really excited at times thinking about the ways He will show Himself in the coming years....I may scream all the way down, but I'm leaping....I'm leaping.
Being that God seems to have Brad and I on this journey of putting all our security in Him alone, and letting go of our lives, this was encouraging to me, and all the more when I realize, the dreams I have, come from God Himself, as years ago, I gave Him permission to burn mine, (which He faithfully did, the smell of smoke still lingering in my nostrils even after all these years) along with anything else that wasn't of Him in my life. So in my humanness...I find myself more than a little fearful at times at what I'm doing, but in my spirit, I'm at peace...when I let Him give it, that is. The peace that just doesn't make sense.. ( my translation of the peace that passes all understanding.)
I wondered when we got home how on earth we would find people to help us. I have learned recently that you don't go out looking for them God just has them call you at home on your phone! :-D
The Lord has connected us with someone who heard about our dreams, and feels it is his portion of the job to provide the space for a House of Prayer, (he's already offered temporary housing, free of charge, not even utility payments...woohoo!) and when we told him about calling about a couple old hotels up for sale, he said he had his realtor call about both of them, the same two we were looking at, two days before! So God not only will give you a dream, His dream, He will plant it in others also, and bring you together to carry it out. I have no clue what the future holds....but when I'm standing on this side of the Red Sea....I really wished I could have praised Him ahead of time, on the other side. Trusting and walking by faith is hard....even though at every turn He shows me His goodness. I'm really excited at times thinking about the ways He will show Himself in the coming years....I may scream all the way down, but I'm leaping....I'm leaping.
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