I've had the most productive Sunday I have had in awhile, but it's also been the loneliest. That being said...God has had my attention all day, and I think that's how He wanted it. I have made sure to keep the music going to keep my mind focused on what He wanted to whisper in and not what I wanted to feel. Feelings can get you to a place you don't want to be because they are focused on the here and now instead of on the realm that we can't see. I was on Twitter last night and saw where Mandisa had posted about a loneliness bout she was having. I about shouted...sometimes you just need to know it's not just you. In Jesus name...God's going to own that feeling as His own before the year's over. Moving on....
Ya'll stay with me here, remember I'm a visual person. Sometimes when I am in a conference or a workshop and sitting for a long period time, I get fidgety to keep from going numb. It happens at night too, if I lay on my arm under my pillow for too long, it can go to sleep. We were created to move at certain intervals. Now think about it in the spiritual...how many times have we felt God whisper us something and we did nothing. That whole term quenching the Spirit is real in case you had any doubt. As a trusted friend as always told me, you gotta move when God's moving. When He's stirring, is the time to jump in. The man lay by the pool of Bethesda waiting on someone to push him in, but he stayed there in that same condition for a long time. That is until Jesus stopped by and asked him a question..."Do you want to be well?". Sometimes I think Jesus is asking us the same thing when we present requests to Him...He knows our hearts after all, so He knows what we need and what we are seeking after, but He's asking Do you really want that? Do you want to be whole? Do you want that freedom? Do you really want restoration? You see the man had become stuck because he was focused on what had to be done, instead of doing all he could to get himself to the water.
How many times do we find ourselves in that same spot? We ask God for freedom, we seek after it in our prayer closet, we know He can do it...yet when He whispers in to take a step, we stay still. We stay focused on anything, but what He is asking us to do. We keep clicking the words even though God said to go lay down ______ at the altar. (That's a personal note for me...) Before we know it, the whispers start to become quieter and quieter....and the flame that once was, starts to grow colder. Then we find ourselves wondering why frustration, offense, insecurity, anxiety etc. seem to come so easy....the fire that used to put them out isn't as strong as it once was. We let ourselves focus on the task instead of obedience. Hear my heart on this....God is a jealous God and doesn't like to share. He loves His children beyond our wildest imagination and too much to not stop by and ask the question once more, Do you want it? Just as God spoke to Samuel more than once when he was just a boy at the temple, God gives us more than once chance and for that, I am forever thankful.
Just being real....I know what that distance feels like. I didn't realize it was a hardness, coldness until this weekend when God started peeling off the layers and ripping off the duct tape. I had grown numb in an area of my life to His whispers and in doing that ...kept circling the mountain frustrated as to why because I knew what the top of the mountain in His presence felt like. God has a way of reminding us of those times, even if it's a verse quickly referenced in a sermon that you happen to catch as you were loading the next verse. A verse that may not mean much to others, but is one of those turning point verses for you...and in that God starts to bring feeling back to that place of you that was numb. It's in doing so that God starts to remind you, Restoration is what I promised this year...Do you really want it? and He stirs once again that place inside of you that has longed for the embers to be moved around and the fire rekindled.
Those dreams are under that wood that grew cold, He hasn't forgotten about them Child and neither should you. Take the time to just sit with Him and let Him pour back in and restore what has been yours all along. I wasn't going to write a blog tonight, but God spoke this to me about a season I am finding myself in right now...maybe someone else is there too.
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