Don't be afraid to let us feel uncomfortable...an encouragement for church leaders.

Having had various opportunities to be in some sort of church leadership throughout my life, I am aware of the struggle that exists around a meeting and wanting people to feel comfortable and welcome. It's not a bad thing in an of itself. However as I reflected on my own story this morning, I was struck by the role that "uncomfortable" has played in my journey and wanted to share this part of my story.

Many years ago, I had the opportunity to attend one of the meetings during the Brownsville revival. I was young, maybe 19. I had a faith in Jesus but I had also grown up in a very conservative denomination where it was suggested that any "unusual movements of the Holy Spirit" (i.e. Anything beyond singing our 3 songs followed by a 20 minute sermon, with some occasional ill-timed hand clapping)  at best should be feared if not charged as being straight out demonically influenced. However I had been recently introduced to my now husband and he had a different spiritual history all together, including a miraculous healing as a little boy. This fact coupled with stories my grandma used to tell about "crazy" things God had done (like heal people) plus another acquaintance who had recently shared how she had been delivered from alcohol addiction at the Brownsville revival all lead me to give a curious and cautious yes to the invitation to attend one of these meetings, despite the fact  I had heard I may encounter "unusual movements of the Holy Spirit."

I remember it clearly, the worship that night was indeed more exuberant than I was accustomed to but no one was running and screaming, or barking like dogs (I must've heard a weird story growing up because I clearly remember begging God as a teen to not ever make me bark like a dog in worship) and I enjoyed it. This was followed by a very evangelistic, come to Jesus, surrender your life to him message, which was also something I was accustomed to. Then came the alter call...we always had one of those, so I was cool with that. I thought I was getting out of there un-weirded out until something else happened. There was no "something else" in my world up to that point so when "phase 2" of the alter call went into effect, my radar went full code red alert... Looking back, the leadership team was just extending the time to include ministry for those who needed one-on-one prayer and/or a touch from the Holy Spirit (which did for a handful of people result in them falling over), but for me, watching this for the first time, I was COMPLETELY and TOTALLY freaked out. I could not get out of that building fast enough after that. I was so incredibly UNCOMFORTABLE. From the outside, my experience could often be construed as a negative experience, for a person to enter a meeting and leave not feeling good or encouraged or whatever it is the common goal of a meeting often is, but let me share with you the rest of the story....

I went back to the house I was staying in and reflected on my discomfort and fear but not just that. For weeks prior to this evening, the Lord had been working in my life and helping me see that there was more to Him and more to my faith than I had understood or experienced. It was the very experience of attending that meeting and being confronted with somethings of God that were foreign and unknown and uncomfortable for me that lead me to voice one of the most heart felt, game changing prayers of my life. I stood at the window that hot, Florida, summer night and said to God that while I didn't understand everything and was a little scared, I knew enough to know that I didn't know everything about Him. Then I asked if He would permit me to know as much of Him as I possibly could this side of heaven. And shared that I didn't want to throw out the good for fear of the bad. I had seen somethings that night that were indeed weird to me, but the Mysterious Unknown had been drawing me for a while. 

That prayer was one of the most significant things I've ever prayed and one of those that He gives a life long yes to over and over. 

How incredibly sad would it have been if the leadership of that church in Brownsville had made "all people feeling comfortable" in their meetings a core value. That night, I stood at the edge of an unknown part of the Creator... The One endowed with unimaginable power...the Unknowable One... And yes, my first emotions were fear and discomfort. That was entirely appropriate. The God of the Universe can be incredibly uncomfortable to be around sometimes! But had the leadership tried to "reign it all in" I would've been robbed of that opportunity to see that there was more, which lead me to want and ask for more of Him. You see it was my DISCOMFORT in what I didn't currently understand or had experienced that caused me to recognize that He was bigger and that there was more. It didn't turn me off, it ultimately turned me on! 

21 years later, I sit here so very thankful for that evening. I have told my story many times and that night is always an integral part of the story I tell. My family and I are preparing for a move overseas to serve in a church there. A church I never would've considered being a part of had I not been permitted to encounter a God that was bigger than what I knew at 19. And I still am encountering new things about Him and it is so so good! He is so good...so much more than any of us could ever know. 

I hope, if you are in church leadership, this story can help encourage you. If there are things you feel the Lord desires to do in a meeting, things that may just make people uncomfortable, rest assured, He uses "uncomfortable" to draw people to Himself. And that is the goal, people being drawn to Him. Maybe someone will feel uncomfortable and run out and never come back. THATS OKAY. We don't do what we do to draw people to a place anyway. We aren't trying to build a name for ourselves or establish a mini kingdom of our own or even protect our reputation in the community. We measure success by obedience and surrender that men may be drawn to Him. And that day God used UNCOMFORTABLE to draw me to Himself. 

Often I will see pictures while in prayer. Over the last few years, however, the Lord actually will unfold scenes, like in a movie. This one contains an invitation from the Lord to those in the church who have found themselves lost and distracted, even while having never left the comfort of the "church". 

“WAIT and listen, everyone who is thirsty! Come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Yes, come, buy [priceless, spiritual] wine and milk without money and without price [simply for the self-surrender that accepts the blessing]. [Rev. 21:6, 7; 22:17.]”

Isaiah 55:1 AMP

“And He [further] said to me, It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I [Myself] will give water without price from the fountain (springs) of the water of Life. [Isa. 55:1.]”

Revelation 21:6 AMP

“The [Holy] Spirit and the bride (the church, the true Christians) say, Come! And let him who is listening say, Come! And let everyone come who is thirsty [who is painfully conscious of his need of those things by which the soul is refreshed, supported, and strengthened]; and whoever [earnestly] desires to do it, let him come, take, appropriate, and drink the water of Life without cost. [Isa. 55:1.]”

Revelation 22:17 AMP

Deep in the heart of a church building there was a little room, a classroom with no windows, a flannel graph, some folding chairs, a green rug and a table. It had white walls, a white industrial tiled floor and fluorescent lights overhead. Under the gray metal folding chair in the room was a little girl playing with the flannel graph and other props found in the room. She spent many of her days here in this room, week after week, quite contented and safe. After a time, however, her curiosity roused her and she began to look up and around the room where she was and for the first time noticed the door leading into the hallway. She decided to walk through the door and explore the building around this little room .... Slowly, she wandered alone around and around the building, she was happy, enjoying the different hallways and rooms as she got further and further from this center room, and over time found herself exploring the fringe rooms of the building. She was no longer a little girl at this point, but a young woman, yet still wore her hair in two braids and full of youth. The very most outer room was large and had several windows to the outside world. The room was less bright as there was no artificial fluorescent light like there had been in the little classroom. Instead there was only the filtered, natural light coming through the trees and plants outside the windows. There were strange jungle like vine tendrils that grew along the inside wall, having found their way in from the outside. The room seemed unkept and abandoned and there were no chairs or tables there like there were in the inner rooms in the building. She looked and saw an opening where a door used to hang, only rusty hinges were left…the door had been torn off. Something had happened in this room. Some kind of attack had occurred. This room used to be a meeting place for the wise ones. The ones who were the dreamers who would make plans about all that they would do just outside the door….they knew of the love of a Savior and their hearts once burned with passion for those who had not yet heard. But there had been an assault against them….a beast had come and torn off the door and in their terror, the wise dreamers, full of fire, had retreated further in the walls where they would be safe. The beast who came for them knew there was no need to go any further, for if they retreated further in the walls, they would be of no threat in the outside world, in the jungle where he roamed. The young woman however, noticed the opening and began to feel the world outside was beckoning her, almost pulling on her somehow, and one day, she actually found herself with a foot outside the door. Once outside she quickly noticed the wildness of the world around her. Large vines trailed across the ground and some even up the sides of the church building (and into the fringe rooms as well where she just left). She was under a thick canopy of trees which made her surroundings seem very dark, though it was day, and there were unkept thickets everywhere. She took a few slow steps and spun around for a moment taking note of how different this place was than the classroom where she once spent all her time with its sterile, well-lit, surroundings. She noted that there was no flannel graph to be found and realized how out of place that prop would be out here... She saw a faint path in front of her and slowly began to walk through this jungle, though it was overgrown and she had to work to get through all of the overgrowth and debris. She had not gone too far at all before she stumbled upon a man sitting along the path, who looked like he was in pain and very thirsty. As she stopped to see if he was okay, I caught a glimpse of her eyes...they were full of fire. The same eyes that revelation talks about Jesus having, and as she knelt down she realized on her back was a backpack and it was full of bottles of water. She had received these bottles week after week, year after year while in the church building and it was clearly more than she herself needed. I also took note of her clothes. She was dressed in hiking gear, backpack and all, with shoes and clothes meant for a journey, and her hair still in two braids. As she walked on, she met stranger after stranger in the wild and began to give the water to each one she met, and as she did joy filled her heart as she began to give away what she had been collecting all those years, realizing finally what it was for.




But then the scene changed...it flashed quickly to another woman also leaving the church building. She was walking in the parking lot on the opposite side of the building and dressed differently. She had on a very tailored and brightly colored fitted dress, heels, a white wide brimmed hat with a small stripe of color around the center that matched her dress. She held a pretty white leather hand bag trimmed in gold painted metal, and her make up and hair was just as finely crafted as her clothes. I saw her creamy white, clear complected face and she had on sunglasses and looked like a movie star. In the small purse she clutched were many tiny statues of Jesus. As she walked through the parking lot she would smile and laugh and give away her little statues of Jesus. There was no fire in her eyes (they were covered anyway) and she seemed quite unaware and out of touch. She didn't even look at those she was handing the statues to, and yet she felt like she was doing a very good thing for those around her, very satisfied with what she had done. It was likely, given she was still in the parking lot, those she was handing her statues to were the people whom she had just been inside with, and had their own statues which they had also collected, but she was quite unaware of this fact, nor did she even recognize them. As I looked up past the parking lot I saw that the entrance she had just come out of consisted of several large sets of glass doors that led into a busy foyer that was well decorated and well cared for, unlike the room at the back of the building where the other woman had been. This grand entrance was the front door. The people who went in and out of this entrance week after week never went much past the parking lot once they left, and were quite unaware of the jungle that lay just on the opposite side of the building, nor did they know of the abandoned classroom, or the other woman who had been in the building with them. Much of the busyness conducted around this building happened right there in the front. It consisted primarily of just the coming in and going out again each week and the infrequent dealing of Jesus trinkets in the front area. Occasionally a homeless man would stumble into the parking lot with his hands out, only to be handed one of the trinkets... He would look confused as he stared at this statue in his hands and feeling that this place could not give him what he needed, with sadness he eventually stopped coming. This area was where the wild and the jungle had been in the front also but was now buried under this concrete pad of parking lot, so that it was easier for people to get in and out.




The movie star-like woman was the central character in the front of the building. It was all about her. The other side was about the story that was unfolding.. The epic story of a woman lost in love of the one she knew, she was unaware of self and only cognoscente of his heartbeat inside her and where it compelled her to go and what it compelled her to do. She was continuing on the age old path... Telling the story again and again. To the woman in the front…He beckons…abandon self focus and appearances... You have fitted yourself in garments of praise that are too restrictive like the dress you wear. You adorn yourself to reveal your shape, flaunt your tastes and preferences. In doing so you have become obsolete and ill fitted for the journey you are called to. Every detail of your appearance has been perfectly coordinated and you have become incredibly entertained and delighted in yourself when my heart is that you would be incredibly delighted in Me and unaware of who you are so that what makes my heart beat is what makes your heart beat. Take off your sunglasses that you've used to keep the light, my light, from shining in your eyes. The light of my truth, the light of my glory, the Light of my Son. Take the glasses off... It will hurt while your eyes take time to adjust. Get the make up remover out, remove that which you have used to cover up your appearance... Your blemishes are not hidden from me, instead be cleansed from the inside. You have forgotten what it means to be forgiven and washed clean. Take off that silly dress. Strip yourself of the self focus and all the ways you have adorned yourself with self promoting things that are pleasing to you and become who I have made you to be. Return to me. To your infatuation with me. You too were a little girl much like the other at one time... Babes rolling underneath the pews, running the halls in my house, learning and growing in my love, but somewhere you got stuck on the inside. You stopped venturing into new places in my heart. You became intoxicated with self and thus preoccupied with self preservation and comfort, that you might save yourselves instead of being an instrument heralding salvation to the lost and dying. But you yourself have been dying on the inside so you have crafted the perfect cover up, I'm not fooled my love and I am not impressed with your show.. The robe I have for you in paradise is far more brilliant anyway, and get ready to get dirty. The world which you fear is indeed a dangerous and wild place, and you can't be worried about ruining your clothes. Let go of your material possessions and the hold they have on your heart and follow me.The heart of Jesus that longs to engage this wild world .... The heart of Jesus that is compelled, pulled, into the jungle by the lost and dying that are there waiting, is being awakened and rising up in the heart of His bride. Come back to me and let's try this again.

A Father to the Missionaries...

Written 3 years ago??? Just now posted.... welcome to how I blog.... hahaha....

Over the course of the last couple of years, there has been an increase in the stories I have been hearing about some really miraculous events surrounding many individuals coming to faith in Christ Jesus. People of all races, nationalities, religions, cultures etc are experiencing revelations of Jesus in many many different ways...dreams, visions, people simply begging for others to tell them about Jesus and they are receiving Him and being changed despite incredible cost to them. Stories such as these often ignite our passion to see these things happen first hand and build our faith in the God of the miraculous. We need these passion stirring, faith building testimonies! So often these stories are accompanied by the truth in the word. We, as followers of Jesus, are ALL MINISTERS of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is true. Each one of us is called to make disciples of all nations. We are called to be the hands and feet of Christ...it is a command. It's in the word. We need this understanding of scripture. Additionally, we are being made aware of the needs in the world. Everywhere you turn here in the information age, we see clearly the needs of humanity around us. You would have to really try hard to NOT know the needs of at least one people group in this world. We need this knowledge to help us understand and know WHAT to do. And, on top of all of this, we also must know what our gifts are. There are over 7 billion people on this planet. Each one of them needs God's love. Each. One. However, no one person could meet all of the varied needs of these people nor understand how to or what to minister to them. We simply cannot be all things to all people. However, somewhere in the spiritual DNA of each of His sons and daughters, we have been fashioned to uniquely with gifts, talents, passions, and desires that are fit to meet these needs. You HAVE to understand what your gift is...what it is the Lord has uniquely given you to offer. Thinking about this, I began to view these components like ingredients in a recipe. If I were to make brownies, I would need eggs, chocolate, flour, sugar, vanilla, and maybe other things... I would put them all in a bowl and stir them up.... But just because I have all the ingredients in my bowl doesn't mean I have brownies. They have to be cooked first. They have to go into the oven where I wait until they are ready. What I realized is how many times people have gathered all the necessary ingredients together to "do missions" but it never got put in the oven. The oven, represents taking all of these things before the Lord and sitting in His presence...and humbly asking what. Asking where. Asking when. At its core it is intimacy with Him. It is receiving love and healing from Him. It is being made whole. It is falling in love with Him. Jesus had all the necessary ingredients to complete the work before Him, but He still saw fit to be lead...to be Fathered into ministry. He took the ingredients into the oven of the Presence of His Father over and over and never took it upon Himself to direct His gifts nor did He allow anyone else to direct Him and tell Him what He SHOULD do.  No matter how many ingredients we have in place, we still need our Dad. We need Him to refine and burn up all the things that don't need to be there, to infuse Himself into the natural things we have and make them supernatural, anoint them if you will, for His purposes. When you cook something, truly cook it, it doesn't just make that thing rise in temperature. The brownie batter doesn't simply become really hot brownie batter, it changes in chemical composition to become the thing that it was designed to be. To try and step out while still in the "batter" stage only causes a big mess.  He is after our hearts. He wants to not just USE us. He wants to Father us. We will serve His purposes for our lives, we will fulfill the call He has on us as a natural response, by product, out pouring, as we learn to serve His heart. His greatest goal is not getting the most use out of our lives as possible. We are not merely wet rags He is going to wring dry, squeezing every last drop out of us  until we are completely exhausted. He wants to Father us in the process. He wants our journey with Him to be full of Life as we minister Life to others. Our call to disciple nations, our longing to serve Him is at it's core a longing FOR him...for intimacy with Him. We weren't made to do ministry to people for eternity, but we were made to minister to His heart for eternity. To be His son or His daughter for eternity. From that place we will instinctively and naturally serve others, though "others" never become the center or the focus.  Serving can't be what we seek after to try and fill ourselves up, feel important, absolve ourselves of guilt, prove ourselves to others, or even to prove to ourselves that our faith is real. You can't use ministry to convince your own soul you are a follower of Christ. If any of these things are missing or out of place, your still kinda drippy like batter. If you try and minster to the needs of others out of these places in your soul that have unanswered questions about yourself, your call, your relationship to the Father, you will not be ministering to His heart, nor will you be giving life. You can't both seek life from the thing you are supposed to be giving life to and give life to that thing at the same time. We receive From Jesus, give to Jesus, and then to others. (But always always Jesus.)  I think this post is really a product of having felt a lot of guilt from other people who are "doing" it when I look at my life and think I am not "doing" it. It's as if they show up with bags of ingredients and say, "okay, here's your flour, here's your sugar, here's your eggs, here's your chocolate, now go. Make your brownies.....Uh, why aren't you making brownies??? You have all the stuff??? Just do it!!!" And in my heart, I am saying, "Uh, okay...maybe your right. Look at all the stuff I have. I do need to make brownies." and then I start slinging batter at innocent bystandards and wonder why no one wants to know this Jesus who just made me throw brownie batter in their face...Hmmm... I don't have brownies until I take all these things, go to the secret place and He infuses Himself into them. Changing them and making them just right. Then I can go and invite people, "Would you like to try these brownies? They are really good. Here, taste and see....Yeah, the guy who taught me how to make these, Yeah, He wants to teach you too....They are really good..."

Learning to Love Me

It's been YEARS literally since I've posted...but God bless the internet....it was right where I left it. So I guess I will just pick up where I left off...

Self love is a funny and somewhat tricky topic, it seems among believers. It really doesn't need to be that way, we just get weird when we find "religion" and make things strange that don't need to be that way. The whole of all the commandments were summed up by Jesus HImself when he said this: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor AS YOURSELF. 

But what if you don't love yourself? What if you actually have areas where you breed and permit self-contempt and self-hatred? I think on some level, we all do this. And not only do we do this, we often can mistakenly slap a name on it like "humility" or somehow feel as if we are being more spiritual by having a less than God-declared opinion of ourselves.

My own story reflects this in some ways. I fell prey to the predictable and well-used weapon of comparing myself and my body to what the world told me it should be. Not only that though, I allowed these messages to declare to me that I was actually WORTH less because I wasn't measuring up to what the world said was beautiful and desirable. 

This was at its height in my mid teen years as I struggled with some eating issues. But my journey to be healthy and whole in my thinking, in my heart, in my actions unfolded over several decades.

The Lord has been faithful to address what has been broken in relationship to this struggle on every front. Body, mind, heart, spirit. He truly desires wholeness and because my wholeness cost him such a high price, He is relentless in pursuing it in me. I love this about Him. What a comfort to know that He does't give up or get distracted. Granted healing comes on His timeline and according to my cooperation with that so I do have a role, but I don't know what I don't know and have to trust His leading entirely. 

Having said that, I wanted to share some things He has taught me over the last five years that have really been game changers for me. Sometimes he utters wisdom that just readjusts the whole course and the two things I am going to share have been just that in regards to how I view myself and the resulting life then that flows out of that. 

I was in my room preparing to go somewhere. The old familiar feeling of frustration with myself began to rise up (I was probably bloated and something wasn't fitting that had fit before, honestly I don't exactly remember the cause). Usually what spewed out of my mouth or at least the flood of thoughts about myself that would have followed would've and often did drip with self-contempt and words that I wouldn't utter to a friend or foe for that matter! And at that moment, I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror across the room and I "saw" me and I heard the Holy Spirit whisper to my heart, "Why can't you just love 'her'? Is she really that bad? That unacceptable?" and it was over. I felt a compassion for myself and grief over how hard I had been on me that I know was directly from His very heart. For a moment as I looked at me from across the room, I saw myself outside of me...I saw a woman who loves Jesus. A mom who loves her kids and cares for them. A wife who adores her husband. A friend who takes so much joy in the people God has blessed her to know. I saw me through His eyes and realized just how hard I had been on me. Give that woman a break!  It's been a long hard road...why don't you just speak life and encouragement over her instead.... Isn't that what I would do to a friend? And it would be real and truly how I felt. So why do I insist on treating myself differently? 

Shortly there after...the Lord called me out again, this time though, He was being more specific on exactly where to draw some boundaries as it related to how I treated myself. This time, I was casually in the midst of my self talk and wasn't feel particularly consumed with contempt....it was just a simple comment to myself about myself, "Oh, just five pounds, then you would be all good. Thats all really." Then again, I saw the face of a dear friend flash in my mind's eye and the Lord asked me, "Would you say that to her? Would you say that to your friend?" And immediately I answered, "No Lord! I would never say that to her...it would be so hurtful and not encouraging at all!" He answered, "Okay then. Don't say these things to yourself either." This was my line in the sand in regards to myself. When a thought goes through my head about me...sizing me up so to speak, I see the face of my dear friend and ask, "would I say this to or about her?" 

This has truly changed the way I view and treat myself. And I am so aware how subtle and constant my attitude toward myself was not honoring to Him and not respectful to me. I am in turn learning how to be a better friend to myself by employing grace towards me. How can we love our neighbors like ourselves when THIS exists towards ourselves??? 

Now...there is another angle to this that has to do with WHY we are hard on ourselves. I am sure there are a myriad of reasons, but mine was this. I at some point I listened to the world's assessment of me. I agreed I wasn't good enough...I missed the mark. Their opinion of me became MY opinion of me and I held that up over the assessment of God in my life. I said, in essence, "I am trading YOUR assessment of me for MY assessment of me" (at this point it WASNT just what the world says, because I agreed---I think often we think it's the world's view of us that we are fighting against when in reality, if we dig a little, we find we actually agree with it and that is what gives it it's power over us). 

With this idea that I wasn't enough, I became unacceptable to myself. So I had to work to become more acceptable to myself. I found that shame and self-contempt and self-hatred were powerful motivators. I would verbally lash myself into submission...the negative self talk isn't just a compilation of words...it is a weapon...it serves a purpose: to try and make ourselves do something...to reach a goal so that we can become something different so that we can be acceptable to ourselves. For me....I would diet in hopes I could become something I would like and approve of. I would exercise to try and attain a state of fitness I could be proud of so that I could line up with the assessment so that I would approve of myself. 

It has taken me YEARS to see this. To see this whole thing in operation. BUT I can say that God has truly set me free in so so many ways! I can look into a mirror and instead of hearing the lies and self-contempt, I have begun to hear his voice, "All together lovely" (Why do we give the mirror a voice and power to speak over us anyway??) I exercise now BECAUSE I like me and want to take care of me, not in order to like me. I try and eat right so that I can feel good and be in better health BECAUSE I love myself and appreciate the body God has given me while I'm here and want it to not wear out as a result of neglect, though it will wear out anyway. 

There is so much more joy and grace in this area toward myself than I've ever had before. I can laugh at my changing self more. When I exercise, I'm not driving myself like an angry condemning task master (no wonder I had such an aversion to working out for years....my unapproving self showed up with a verbal whip and unrealistic expectations that made attempting anything impossible to enjoy). I actually enjoy myself. I have even been asking myself the question, "What are you capable of?? Maybe I will try some new things just to see what this almost 40 year old body is able to accomplish...but not because I'm trying to earn my approval. It feels good. It feels like freedom. 

I have also realized that this new grace I can extend to myself, pours out on others. I feel more grace for others now that I have learned to love and walk in it for myself. While I may have been able to recognize when something was not a loving comment toward someone else deep inside we can't really offer true love and freedom and grace to others in our hearts that we don't experience/walk in ourselves. It doesn't work that way. When we allow self-contempt to have power and dictate our thoughts towards the way we view ourselves, we have to realize it is in essence giving authority to the enemy. He does not like a cage and won't stay in one, so some notion that we can entertain this self-depricating view while also trying to be loving and encouraging and having a healthy view of others is not possible. We will subconsciously place the same evaluations on others, the same expectations, the same assessments on those around us that we do on ourselves. 

I pray that me sharing this can help to put a finger on some things in your own journey that God may be stirring in you to want something different. Something more full of joy and peace and freedom. 

Hope in the middle of "it"

The crux of our faith hinges upon our steady reliance upon the hope we have in Christ Jesus. Too often we hold back our belief in God, that He is who He says He is, will do what He says He will do, and that we are who He says that we are, and we hold back our trust and confidence and reliance upon Him until we see it manifest through the details and circumstances of our lives. The reality is as God states in His word that the whole of our lives (if we are sons and daughters of Him) has been made subject to Christ and His authority. What we have entrusted to him, he faithfully, continually, perfectly, and eternally will keep and Lord over. He faithfully, continually, perfectly and eternally will lead you and answer you when you call. Tell that to your life! Hold on to Him and cling to these truths before you see how it will work out! Then the peace and joy of Christ can rule over your hearts and emotions and you will learn to be steadied IN the storms of life instead of only being steadied when the difficulty is over. Heathens can be relieved when storms are over but We were made to be victorious in the storms! Victorious over fear of death, loss, ruin, etc... our hearts lie and tell us we have to have something, something other than Him to feel safe, to feel secure, to be at peace, to be happy, and the reality is truly, at the core of our beings and all the  needs we perceive we have is our truest need for Him.. Him who satisfies all things! In Christ, we have freedom from all our hearts "have-to-haves." He longs to make us firm in our INNER-MAN. Immoveable inwardly not in the sense that we wont feel the difficulties of life, not that we wont taste hardship, pain, loss, fear, (Jesus was a man of sorrows acquainted with grief)  but that it won't MASTER over us and be the rudder for our life and faith. Be honest about your struggle to believe, confess your belief, and then run to Christ to ask for help in your unbelief!

"But Christ (the Messiah) was faithful over His [own Father’s] house as a Son [and Master of it]. And it is we who are [now members] of this house, if we hold fast and firm to the end our joyful and exultant confidence and sense of triumph in our hope [in Christ]. Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts, as [happened] in the rebellion [of Israel] and their provocation and embitterment [of Me] in the day of testing in the wilderness, Where your fathers tried [My patience] and tested [My forbearance] and found I stood their test, and they saw My works for forty years. And so I was provoked (displeased and sorely grieved) with that generation, and said, They always err and are led astray in their hearts, and they have not perceived or recognized My ways and become progressively better and more experimentally and intimately acquainted with them. Accordingly, I swore in My wrath and indignation, They shall not enter into My rest. [Therefore beware] brethren, take care, lest there be in any one of you a wicked, unbelieving heart [which refuses to cleave to, trust in, and rely on Him], leading you to turn away and desert or stand aloof from the living God. But instead warn (admonish, urge, and encourage) one another every day, as long as it is called Today, that none of you may be hardened [into settled rebellion] by the deceitfulness of sin [by the fraudulence, the stratagem, the trickery which the delusive glamor of his sin may play on him]. For we have become fellows with Christ (the Messiah) and share in all He has for us, if only we hold our first newborn confidence and original assured expectation [in virtue of which we are believers] firm and unshaken to the end. Then while it is [still] called Today, if you would hear His voice and when you hear it, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion [in the desert, when the people provoked and irritated and embittered God against them]. So we see that they were not able to enter [into His rest], because of their unwillingness to adhere to and trust in and rely on God [unbelief had shut them out]. (Hebrews 3:6-15, 19 AMP)

The Song of the Son

It really truly is all about Jesus. Not just in word but reality. Have you ever taken notice of how the Father feels towards the Son? He REALLY REALLY digs Jesus... His Beloved, in Whom He is well pleased, Son. And to be about that which the Father is about is to really in essence to be about the Son. Reflecting on this truth, the following thoughts and pictures began to unfold in my heart...
As Sons and Daughters of God purchased  by Jesus' blood, our lives and the stories they tell compose  redemption's music, which makes each of us musicians. The Father, our ever skillful conductor, beckons us, come. Come and join in the Symphony of the Son. Daily, our lives play out His Song, over and over, redemption's song sings out through our moments. I could see this scene unfold before my eyes....an outdoor orchestra takes their seat at sunset, beautiful colors fill the sky, sweet smells of flowers and earth float on the breeze and the birds and other living creatures sing creation's song as the Conductor begins to look out over the players. I began to notice two distinct groups. To one side, I saw a sea of nervous players, some looking down at the instrument they had been recently given, unsure of themselves, unsure of this thing, these instruments, they held in their hands, unsure of the Conductor. They squirmed nervously in their seats, the questions and apprehensions written all over their faces. Then I looked at the Conductor, His eyes sweeping over this sea of newcomers and a huge grin of excited expectation stretched across His face...He knew the noise that was about to come forth out of this section and it delighted Him, for in the score, He had made provision for the noise they would make as somehow, these squawks and squeaks would be woven into the notes and lines and phrases and together would convey the beauty of the Son in mysterious ways. His heart was full of anticipation and excitement as they would, some for the very first time, press their lips and just breath into their horns in hopes that something would come out.  Then His eyes shifted to another group. These players had been with Him a while, they were silent, calm, almost unmoving as they had their eyes fixated on the Conductor's baton...ready. It was easy to see they had played many times with the Conductor before and were waiting, watching, undistracted. He let out a deep sigh as He studied this group. His playful smile faded into a penetrating gaze as He looked over these seasoned, weathered ones, an almost tangible strength and wisdom rose off of them. They had not only practiced a great deal, but had waged great wars with their music. A knowing rose up in Him, as tears formed in His eyes as He studied these musicians...there would be great music that came forth from these...powerful melodies that would move creation. For these had learned to watch His every move, take every cue, and play the rests with as much passion and conviction as they played the notes in front of them.They had gained their skills over time and for many it had cost them. Their music was beautiful but it had been bathed in hardship, loss, and pain.  These were almost unaware of themselves and their instruments all together, they were just fixated on their conductor so as not to miss one note, one moment of the grand symphony they had been placed in.

Together their hearts cried out, "Lead us, O Great Conductor, into beautiful music, communicating the sounds that need to go out at your slightest wave...help us keep time with the beat you set, no one playing their instrument at their own will but as one among many who together will set forth the sound You hear in your head, the score of the Symphony of the Son." 

And so it is with us, each and everyday. He has made provision for our missed notes, our uncertain attempts, our fearfulness and yet we are growing, ever-changing, into the skilled musicians who at the slightest sway of the baton can be moved from loud powerful earthshaking melodies, to sweet slow sounds that whisper His love, to the rests that come so silence can tell another part of the story. Regardless of which side we sit on, and depending on the day, we could find our selves in either section, the notes we play ring forth the beautiful melodies of the Son. Redemption's song is continually being played each day, one note at a time. Just play, I hear Him say. At home, play. In your mothering, play. At work, play. As you live your life, live one note at a time, watching, expecting, trusting in Me. I will make beautiful music of it all. Just wait and see....

Rock of Ages, Cleft for me...

You might recognize the title as the old hymn..."Rock of Ages, cleft for me...let me hide myself in Thee..." As with many of the old hymns I grew up with, as an adult I realize there are words in them that I have sung over and over and have no clue what they mean! So when I began to sing this song a while ago, the word cleft kept jumping out at me. I decided to spend some time studying it and was deeply moved by what the Lord showed me.
Exodus 33:22  "When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by." A quick check revealed cleft is a noun meaning hole, but it's root is naqar, which is a verb with the following definitions:
In Exodus

Brown-Driver-Briggs' Definition

1. to split, cleave, break open, divide, break through, rip up, break up, tear
   1. (Qal)
      1. to cleave, cleave open
      2. to break through, break into
   2. (Niphal)
      1. to be cleft, be rent open, be split open
      2. to be broken into
   3. (Piel)
      1. to cleave, cut to pieces, rend open
      2. to break through, break down
   4. (Pual)
      1. to be ripped open, be torn open
      2. to be rent
      3. to be broken into
   5. (Hiphil)
      1. to break into
      2. to break through
   6. (Hophal) to be broken into
   7. (Hithpael) to burst (themselves) open, cleave asunder 
   
   That day on the mountain with God, Moses was hidden in the space that had been created as a result of the rock being split open, rent, forcefully cut. As this began to sink in and I began to see some things. Christ is very often referred to as the Rock in scripture. Christ was cleft, split open by force for us. His body was ripped open, and it is in this cleft that I am hidden, in this split open space. When I enter into Christ, I enter into a space created by brute force. Surrounded on all sides, hiding in this cleft, I am not just reminded of an event that occurred, I am abiding in the reality of what happened. My place of abiding is a place created by great suffering, suffering that affords not just my salvation, but CONSTANT safety, and provides me the opportunity to be in God's presence. Grace is not cheap, beloved. Sin has a cost...a cost that Christ paid dearly for. The gravity of this cost is meant to be a grounding thing for us. I can just imagine, the body of Christ before me, split and torn open, and the Father pointing to Him saying, "You need to step inside here. This is your safe place. This is your place of abiding."  Can you imagine physically stepping into that body pierced, beaten, flesh ripped open? What would it do to our understanding of sin and grace? I don't want to be reminded of that all the time. I want to think about it on Good Friday and that's about it. But to be in Christ, is to live in a place where that reality is not something we just visit once in a while. It was the very act of Him being split open that created a space for me, for us. His resurrected body bears the holes in his hands and feet for all of eternity. I believe this message is important in a day and age where often sin is looked at as no big deal. Just ask for forgiveness, and wallah it's nothing more than a memory! In a day and age where often times the church is compromising morality in order to not turn people away...claiming the standards are just too high and people can't and don't want to accept those, and yet we still think we can offer them Christ? But, look at what sin did to our Saviour! He is a physical picture of the absolute and total destruction and death that sin will reap now in the spiritual and in our relationships. Yes, He is compassionate, and will easily and readily forgive, and has grace for us, but let us not forget how the cleft was formed as we receive this forgiveness and grace.