Buddy Tape

Almost a month ago, I looked down and realized I had jammed my big toe at some point. It was the one on my right foot, so I tend to not always pay attention to the pain on that side especially when I need to go visit the chiropractor. When I looked down that day I noticed that it was black and blue and all of a sudden the pain made sense. (I also noticed I needed to make a pedicure appointment, but I digress). I had written the pain off to just the usual when in fact it was a new pain. I also knew it was still flip flop season and taping up the toe wasn't going to be easy. Most days I wore the shoes I wanted and just taped the toe when at home. Do you know how long it takes for something to heal when you try to make the process on your own schedule instead of just dealing with the inconvenience and doing what needs to be done?

Happy to report my toe has been taped pretty much solid since I wrote the first paragraph Saturday. I've had this title in my head for a week or so, and God's been slowly painting this picture for me. I'm stubborn, God knows it and well He and I are working on that. I'm a visual learner though and God doesn't waste a moment to a paint a picture.

I'm four weeks into a small group this semester on Freedom. Heads up, the blog posts are coming on the other side of this process I'm sure. This is a process I've been taking my time at with over the last two years. My friends in Nashville spoke life into it to start the process, but it's taken longer than expected. Then again, I was trying to compartmentalize things. It's kind of like the toe that I taped when I wanted to. I worked on the freedom as long as I was in Nashville or talking with them, but the wall stayed up everywhere else. Can I let you in on a lesson learned the hard way? Transparency isn't comfortable, but it's how you get free. We delay the process on our own when we treat the wall like a curtain that can be raised up and down at our choosing. Hear my heart, do we need to tell everyone our junk, heavens no. However, those that God has called you to do life with, to minister with, to serve alongside etc., those stay sensitive to God's whispers, and if says let them in...do. It's a lot easier to go through the process of unpacking junk if you aren't doing it solo. (That's a blog for another day,from a lesson learned the hard way of not letting some people in) That being said, I'm great at living behind a turtle shell....but small group this semester has brought the connection piece. It's been the buddy tape to work towards healing, that if left up to me probably wouldn't have happened anytime soon. God knows His timetable and I truly believe sometimes He brings in a wall of burnout to grab your attention and make you listen to Him. The obedience step that comes next is ours, but if our hearts desire is restoration and freedom.....God's going to keep promoting and stirring until we take the step jump in.

Child of His, sweet reader...God's heard the prayers you have been asking Him for over and over and over....and He's putting things into place for you to grab a hold of what He's promised was yours to take. It's yours for the grabbing.

The other side

I was watching an online prayer meeting this morning, and a pastor friend shared the verse above. At some point, read this entire passage. It's one that I honestly skimmed over when I was younger and remember it simply as just "Breakfast with Jesus". I can see the coloring sheet now...but there is so much meat and umph to this chapter. I truly believe God brings back verses at just the right time. He knows when our Spirit needs that push, but more than that He knows when we are ready to listen to that push. The most dangerous place for our Spirit to be is in neutral. Park is better than neutral, reverse is better than neutral (I know you are thinking how can going backward be better...but it's better than not caring whether you move forward or backward). I digress...back to the scripture.

These fishermen had done all they knew to do, they had fished all night and had nothing in their nets. Verse four said, Jesus was standing on the shore but they didn't know who he was at that moment. He called to them and asked them if they had any food, meaning had they caught anything. When they replied no, He told them to cast their nets to the other side. What happened next was one of those Jesus showing up and showing out moments, because their nets were full to an overflow.  Once they saw how full their nets were, something in them knew who was on the shore. Verse 11 said they had so many fish in their nets, yet it wasn't broken. The next verse shows the heart of Jesus when He said come and eat breakfast. I just love that....

I'm sure the disciples that were out fishing were tired. They were doing what they knew to do and yet were probably feeling defeated because the nets were empty. In that moment of defeat, someone whom they didn't recognize at first, said throw the nets to the other side. I'm sure the disciples probably thought are you kidding me, but they did it anyway. After all, they had spent all night with it in one place and nothing happened, why not do what this apparent stranger was saying. I wonder if they hadn't cast their nets to the other side if the scene would have continued the same way. How many times does that whisper of obedience not really make sense to us? We have been doing what we know to do and yet, God's whispering hey throw it to the other side.  It's not something that makes sense in the natural and honestly to anyone looking on the outside the obedience step may not make sense, but you may never know just how full your nets can be if you keep trying to fish with them on the side you have always been fishing on. Faith is throwing the net to the other side, knowing God's going to fill it up.

I was going to stop this blog right here, but then I noticed the subtitle for the next part of the chapter, Jesus Restores Peter. This is the year of Restoration, I know I have said that before in other posts. I've learned over the last month or so though that for things to be restored, you have to strip away what was there previously. The band-aids have to be ripped off and peroxide poured in. The old way of looking at things comes off and a new way is painted on. It's trading in our physical/soul way of looking at life, at ourselves and taking on how He views things. It's a process. The disciples may have not cast their nets on the other side if the had only been fishing for a short time. Obedience precedes restoration, Jesus had Peter's attention, He had Peter's focus, more than that He had Peter's heart.

Listen to the whispers this week reader.....is He saying it's time to cast the net to the other side? The world is waiting on us to be the body of Christ to them, by being His hands and Feet. It may not make sense to our physical to throw the nets to the other side, oh but what is waiting if we step out in faith and simply follow the whisper of the Master?

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. 

Do you want______?

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.