Can I just be real on this blog? I mean this is my heart out on paper/print. I truly believe God never gives us a moment just for ourselves and if this blog gets finished then, it's a moment meant to be shared. (I have several blogs in the middle of writing that He would never let me finish...so finished blogs are meant for sharing and I learned that a long time ago.) Some of you may be looking at the title and going, duct tape, God? I've talked about band-aids and how healing comes when we let God take those off...well some parts of our lives are held together by duct tape. There are parts of who we are, parts that on the outside look like we are all put together....but what isn't seen is all of the duct tape God has used to keep His child together. The duct tape is part of our story. It's those areas that give us a heart for someone who may be in the same place, but haven't let God apply the duct tape yet. It's what gives us a story to share...of how but for God holding us together we would be a mess. (I realize God doesn't have to use duct tape...but if you have read any of my blogs, you know I am a visual person...and this is how God and I talk). If you have ever had duct tape stuck to your skin and then tried to pull it off, not only does it hurt...but it leaves a raw place. The places of our hearts held in place with duct tape are usually the raw places.
This is Restoration year in the Jewish calendar, and it's also the seventh year since the bus wreck. So for me, I knew when I walked into this year...God had a plan and a purpose, but I also knew the enemy would come fighting it. I just don't think I realized how hard he would fight. Transparency was the word God spoke in my Spirit at the beginning of the year...and He's been faithful to that word despite all of the ouches. Right down to the discussion He and I had this summer about being faithful to the reason I walked off the bus seven years ago. God has had a plan in place all along, me...I haven't been listening. Well let me take a step back, I've been listening in some areas and doing in others. The same God that speaks so personally to me in my prayer closet, in my living room when I am having church, and when I'm in service with friends is the same God that is talking in other places. It's that sometimes my focus has been on doing and not listening. God doesn't stop speaking to His children, it's that sometimes we get so distracted by even good things we stop listening. We stop listening when He is drawing us to lay things down and in doing so we keep circling a mountain He planned for us to be over a long time ago. God longs to redeem and restore all that the enemy is stolen, but sometimes it's a step of obedience that keeps us from walking in that. When God's moving, move period. Don't put it off for later what needs to be done in the moment He's speaking it. That's a lesson for another blog.
We delay our purpose by staying focused on our task. Our task is to be His hands and Feet and to love as He loved us. To do that means embracing who we are in Him, strengths, and weaknesses in all. It means being real and transparent so that others see not what we do, but what He is doing through us. We each have a ministry that God had purposed and planned for us from the beginning before we even had a name in this realm...He knew who we were. That ministry, that calling, that purpose...is what makes our heart beat. Hear my heart on this too....ministry doesn't just take place within the walls of the church building. When we get our eyes off of the church as being this place and that place and realize it's all of God's children....it will open our possibilities because we will be unified in reaching this world for Him. The church shouldn't be a place where we go looking to be filled all of the time, but where we go to connect with others each week. God can fill our cups in our personal time with Him. We need that time each week with others on this journey so that just as Moses had with Aaron and Hur, we have someone who can reach out and hold our hands up when the battle starts wearing us. It's the four friends who broke through a roof to get their friend to Jesus....but that's a blog for another day. I have learned the hard way (and am still learning), don't keep your hands so busy doing what may need to be done...that you don't let others grab a hold of them when you need that Aaron or Hur. Don't fall into a being so busy trap that you stop being at some moments. I learned the lesson the hard way and when it finally processes it's probably enough for a blog or two. God never meant for us to run at such a pace that we lose sight of our purpose or who He called us to run the race alongside.
Sometimes when the season changes, it may not always be felt at first. Just as when Summer first started this year, it still felt like Spring. Sometimes we don't always recognize the season is changing because we don't feel it at first. Sometimes God gets our attention with ripping off the duct tape...reminding us of who really does have control (as much as we may think we do). Sometimes He says to slow down child, I need some time with you. We can get so caught up in doing that we lose sight of listening. It's not anyone's fault, but our own. It's in that slowing down though that God starts to pour in and speak the truth that starts to heal where that duct tape used to be. It's in that slowing down that we slowly start to see who God planned for us to be all along.
Spend time at His Feet today, more to come later....
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