When God whispers in...

When God starts writing a blog on the way to church service, you might find yourself distracted. If you find yourself distracted, you might miss the step off and take a stumble headed to your seat. If you take a stumble, you pop back as you do thankfully and head to your seat. Once in your seat, you find moments later just why you are in the seat as you watch a sweet and precious child with exceptionalities worship without reserve. If you find yourself watching this, you find the tears flowing...and you realize God is undoubtedly in every moment. Now on to the blog God started writing this morning....

A couple of months ago, I heard Aaron preach a sermon on the Master having need of you. I've often found that sometimes sermons that I don't think take root....really do because God brings them to mind when He has planned. This morning as I was getting ready for church, this sermon came back to mind. I didn't think a lot of it at first, just filed it back away knowing it was a blog at some point. I googled to find the verse exactly (yes sometimes I don't always know where something is and use Google for reference lookups). On the drive to church, a sense of expectancy rose up in my Spirit.....and I knew this blog was going to happen today. God started preaching to me about the verse He had brought to my Spirit. 

Y'all when God started breaking this one apart, whew...I could sense a shift coming. This whole journey is about us moving forward to the eternal prize, to that moment when we stand before Him one day, but in the meantime, God's given us this life to live. He longs to see us not only live it with our to-do lists and busy schedules but to live it to the fullest and with abundance. God longs to see us live a life in overflow. To live a life so full of Him that every breath we take, every move we make, every word we speak, every step we take is not our own. It's a daily (even a second by the second choice at times).  As we uncover our purpose which is fueled by our passion, we start to see who God designed us to be. Sometimes on that journey though we realize there is some "stuff" still locked away, tied up, packed down, etc. It takes work to untie it, and it's a process that doesn't always make sense to some....but know this. If God's called you to untie something, He has need of it. He wants all of you, all of the mess you have kept locked away, all of the stuff you call junk. He has need of all of it. This is Restoration year....and God longs to restore what has been broken, taken etc., but first He needs you to untie it and leave it in His hands. 

This was a sermon God was preaching to me this morning. I hit a moment this past week where feelings flooded my heart and I was one step away from overwhelmed anxious Melissa taking over. I knew being tired had something to do with it, but I also knew God was fighting a battle I couldn't see and I needed to get still. Yeah, that's not always an easy thing to do in the middle of the workday, so a quick/long text to a couple of prayer covering friends and the feelings started to ease.  I knew this was just another bump in the journey and God was reminding me yet again...that He's got this. Sometimes those moments come simply because God wants us to push through them knowing He has us, feelings in all. God longs to be louder than our feelings (thank you small group homework for the week). 

I don't know what it is you have tied up, locked away, or stuffed down. I don't know what is keeping you from walking in that abundant overflow of Him that God promised us was ours. I know what I have unstuffed, unpacked, and untied over the last month or so. Trust me there have been moments already when I'm like God do I really have to. I mean I've grown comfortable with my stack of band-aids to put over things....It wasn't easy to give Him the band-aids plus know that He was about to pour peroxide into some spots. When I'm sensitive enough to His whispers, I know that my moments of I don't want to people aka blahs are a distraction from something He longs to tell me. I know God has a purpose for the process and in the journey is a renewing passion that only He can stir. This verse this morning was like God blowing on a wound. It was easing the burn of the peroxide that had been poured in over the last two weeks. It was God reminding me He has need of all that has been untied. Take some time on this beautiful Sunday afternoon and just let Him whisper to you. As I said before I don't know what may be tied up for you, but know this God has need of it. He desires for His sons and daughters to walk in freedom, in life each and every day. 

Midnight moments

Can I be real and just share for a few? I started just to make this a post on Facebook and it got too long. I almost titled this blog #messinprogress cause that's what I feel like some days. The blog is titled Moments Along the Journey...sometimes you are walking on the journey, sometimes you are standing still, and sometimes you are stopped letting God go through your "junk" so that it can finally be let go on that journey. All spots on the journey are part of His plan, but more than His plan ...they are part of His purpose for us. I've written a blog before called the abundant life vs. the saved life. This is that part of the journey I'm talking about....there comes a moment when God goes, Child, this is what I mean by life...and He opens up revelation upon revelation. Hear my heart...to sit in those moments of revelation mean being willing to do some work. It takes work to let God hide the band-aids and pour peroxide on the wounds. That's a blog (or three) for another day.

Verse five came at some point today, one of those moments when I recognized that anxiety and overwhelmed were about to take residence again and my small group homework came back to me. Joyce Meyer calls it "stinking thinking". I've heard that phrase for years, but I'm finally seeing it's thinking the way you feel. Easier said than done and this is still a work in progress. Tonight I read verses three and four and it just stuck. Fighting with how we feel is a weapon of this world. If our thoughts are lined up with His, thinking can be a weapon of the world. We truly do turn into our own worst enemies when we walk with those weapons in our hands. This is me preaching to myself.....Verse four says that we have the divine power to demolish strongholds (hello abundant life and freedom)...so why don't we walk in it? That's the million dollar question and one that's different for each one of us. For me....busy with band-aids was easier than no band-aids and peroxide. For me, it was just easier to do than to get still and be, to let Him have all of that junk that I had grown accustomed to carrying. In reality, I had grown numb to carrying it. It's like carrying something for a while...when you put it down all of a sudden, your muscles start to hurt and there is a soreness for awhile as the feeling comes back.

The knowledge of God...that He loves us more than we love ourselves and that His purpose far exceeds anything we could think or feel for ourselves. His heart for us is immense. When we can truly grasp that love.....there are no chains that can stay locked because that love is freedom.

We have weapons that are not of this world....and the enemy knows exactly what they are. (That's why he does his best to make sure you and I don't know what they are). Oh, but when we start to see the weapons that are in our hands....

Hear my heart tonight, this is just me sharing some moments with God over the day. I haven't got this thought thing mastered yet....I'm a mess in progress, but progress is being made. The band-aids are off and He's poured that peroxide into places....and that restoration that He promised this year is bringing a healing and a wholeness with it. This Jesus girl may just have her run at some point...(lol). Don't discount what's He's placed in your hands......and on that I'll end.

Night readers or Happy Tuesday (depends on when you read it).

When there is a knot to unravel....

When you are laying in bed trying to sleep and God starts painting a picture for you as only He can. This whole picture has more than one blog attached to it, but I'll keep this one short. I'll post a transparent one later with more of me just sharing my heart.

The hose can still be attached to the spout even when the flow may seem blocked. The hose can still have water flowing through it even though it may not be at the speed it once was. There may be a knot or a kink in the hose, something that has come in and altered the flow that once was. Stay with me for a minute....it takes time to unravel where the kinks got in, but the first step is realizing hey wait a minute this flow isn't what it used to be. You can't just say to the hose hey unravel yourself please, it takes some movement and some time. You can still use the hose with knots and kinks in it, but it may take you longer because something has interrupted the flow and the strength that the water comes out.

Now think in the spiritual....When we accept Jesus as our Savior and enter into that relationship with Him we are attached to His spout. The water begins to flow through us...but then something sets in and there is a kink/knot that happens to the hose. Distractions, Obstacles, Schedules, Feelings, Routines, etc....all can cause a knot or tangle to the hose. That flow that once begins to not be as strong as it once was. The first step is in realizing something is interrupting the flow. The next step is doing something to straighten it out. Just like you can't say to a garden hose in the natural, hey unravel yourself...it's the same way in the spiritual. It requires a step or two aka movement.

I could keep going on this one, but I'm just going to end it here. It is possible for the flow in one area of your life to be strong while there is a knot or tangle in the other. Take a heart inventory and then listen when He really answers......a whole heart is a heart wholly in His hands, but that's a blog for another day.

Forward on the journey~~

The Great Exchange

When I taught Children's Sunday School, I used to use the light switch to teach about faith and doubt. It's hard to have both at the same time because they are antonyms (once a teacher always a teacher..). It's hard to have the light switch on and off at the same time, much like faith and doubt. You can have one or the other, but you can't have both. You know if you have read any of my blogs, I'm a visual learner..so that's how I tend to teach. Well after reading a post on Facebook last night, the title from this blog came...then last night as I lay trying to sleep...God painted the picture as only He can. It's in line with what I've been reading over the last couple of months in a couple of books and online devotionals. (I love it when God lines up what He's pouring into you, just when He knows...) 

When we ask God to come into our hearts, He moves in and takes residence. He comes into our space, but it's not exactly all His just yet. You see it's a lot like moving into a home. It takes time, some rearranging, some cleaning, some moving things into the place they need to be, some making it your own...before that house becomes your home. It takes living in that place some time too, before you start to see just how things need to be arranged. (It's also that way in the classroom for teachers. We start the year with our rooms arranged one way, and then after a couple of weeks sometimes they get moved and rearranged as we settle into the space for the year). 

As God begins to make our hearts His home over the years in relationship with us, there is some rearranging, some cleaning, some moving around that ends up being done. It's not pleasant and honestly it hurts in the process, but it's how God turns your heart into His heart. We find ourselves praying and singing for God to make us more like Him, but do we really realize just what that means. It's a surrendering of ourselves in return for becoming more like Him. God knows our hearts...He knows when we are holding on to those parts of us that He's been trying to pry our fingers off of. Hear my heart, the duct tape will come off eventually and the only place to take Him to, is that place. 

As God makes our hearts His own, He makes us into who He planned for us to be from before we were born. As our hearts become more like His, the desire to please our audience of One becomes our hearts cry and in doing that some of the things that used to be in plain view, start to grow strangely dim...and what used to be dim becomes easier to see. 

It's hard to hold two things at once, worry and peace, faith and doubt, passion and people pleasing, anxiety and confidence, fear and trust...it's hard to hold our hearts as we know them and His heart in us.  The struggle will be there always, but there is a strength that will begin to overtake us moment by moment as we learn to quiet the flesh and let the Spirit take over. There is a peace that comes when we start to see that the rat race was never His dream for us all along, just the obedience walk. It's a journey that's all our own....

There is another blog coming tomorrow that I actually started before this one. It's based off of the song Broken Things by Matthew West. This great exchange isn't easy...only God knows the many times I have laid things down only to discover I'm still carrying even more that needs to be laid at His Feet. It's what He meant when He called us to die to our flesh daily. It's a will exchange knowing that peace only comes with one of them. It's a feeling exchange knowing that even when you don't feel it, you can believe what He says about you.