In the Wilderness....Again

Checklist complete. Everything appears to be the same as it was just a few months ago. At least in my small circle of life. No dramatic changes. No sudden life altering tragedies (Praise the Lord) or even abundant blessings. Everybody around me is going about daily activities according to SOP (standard operating procedure). Even the weather this spring is better than in years. God has brought rain back to Georgia! The landscape is greener, lusher than it has been in for many Mays. Yet in spite of all of this "normalcy" everything is different. How do you describe standing in the middle of the desert when it looks like you are standing in the middle of a thriving, busy metropolis? Must be spiritual wilderness time again.....

Can you identify with me when I describe this feeling of Wilderness? You know you are walking with God. He is with you, yet the ground around you is parched and rugged terrain. Almost without realizing it, you have been transported from one spiritual dimension to another. You stop and do the self check. Am I still walking with you, Lord? Am I still communing with you? Is there something to which I failed to pay attention when the "change direction" signal came? What is going on, Lord? It is as if God gave the command, "Beam her up, Scottie" only it was in the spiritual realm. So I am still walking and functioning in my "normal" world but everything is different. Really different. Has this happened to you?

Our relationship with God, our Lover and our Lord, is so uniquely personal. He has a path that is designed for us individually to experience Him, to know Him, to love Him in the most personal way. However we are free to make choices of how we are going to respond to His invitation to enjoy this relationship with Him. Competition lurks at every turn of the road for our attention. Then there is the aspect of the seasons of our life. When we have completed one phase of growth, He wants us to move to the next dimension to get deeper with Him. Perhaps it is as simple as needing us someplace else doing something different for the kingdom. One thing is certain. Unless we are communing with Him, we cannot discern what He is teaching us and directing us to do. We must become "Discerners of the signs of the times" Matthew 16:3 in our lives. We must also be ready to respond when He makes a move in our lives to shift us.

Wilderness seasons. What do we do when we are in a wilderness season of our life and how do we respond to Him? First we cannot panic. We cannot shut down and turn inward thinking that this is "all about us." Our loving precious Lord uses the wilderness to bring us to Him. Did you know that the word Wilderness is used 305 times in the Bible? What an incredible Word study/Bible study for anyone of us in this season. Listen to Ezekiel 20:34-37. "I will bring you out from the peoples and gather you out of the countries where you are scattered, with a mighty hand, with an outstretched arm, and with fury poured out. And I will bring you into the wilderness of the peoples, and there I will plead My case with you face to face. Just as I pleaded My case with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so I will plead My case with you," says the Lord God. "I will make you pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant." I encourage you to read the rest of the verses that follow to 44. Do you hear His incredible personal plea for your heart? He is calling you out from the other peoples of the earth and going to plead His case as He did with our ancient fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt and He is going to bring you into the covenant bond. In order to plead His case, God has to get us away from the chaos of the world, take us into the wilderness and then pass us under the rod. This is a metaphor from a shepherd who makes his sheep pass under his rod in counting them. Can you grasp what He is doing? He is culling out His sheep, His children, His remnant and insuring that they are indeed His flock, then He is branding them with His covenant.

My wilderness season, your wilderness season. We don't turn inward; what do we do? We turn upward more than ever before. We don't impulsively move before we hear what He is instructing us to do next. Remember we are to become discerners of the signs of the times, both on the greater scale and on a very personal dimension. Our Lord is purposeful in every aspect of our lives. He has gifted us and trained us for a unique role in this kingdom work and in this time in which we are living. These are critical times. We are more than tiny pebbles being thrown in a neighborhood pond. We are mighty stones of His righteousness that He will fling into the greatest seas if we will abandon our own agendas in our lives and give Him total access to us. The subsequent recurring rings from that toss can have a powerful impact for the kingdom if we will surrender in total obedience.

Wilderness. Don't fear it. Embrace it. Relish this time that the Lord has set aside in your life that is His and His alone. Discover what it is that He is trying to teach you about Him and about your relationship with Him. Change your normal quiet time with Him and increase it. Get out of comfort zones of devotional time if they have become routine and dive in deep. Seek His voice in directing you somewhere you have never gone before. A different time, a different place to be with Him, even different people with whom to search out His heart. However don't mistake busy-ness with searching for His heart. Remember He has cautioned us before, I want to you to Come Be With Me before you Go Do For Me. You must know His heart before you can truly know what His desire is for you life in this kingdom work. However long your walk in the Wilderness lasts with Him, remember you are with Him and He has a wonderful purpose for taking you there. Enjoy it.

Silence in the Midst of Chaos

Without a doubt everyone of you can identify with me when I say there has been so much happening in my life recently that I don't know if I am coming or going. One demand to the next ~ one function to the next. Go to bed, get up, what's next on the list to get done. I see it in your faces; I see it in mine when I look into the mirror. When I began to meditate this morning on the subject of this week's blog, I wasn't hearing anything from Holy Spirit. Silence. I was dumbstruck. Where was His voice? This was not normal. He was usually prompting me long before Monday morning. I cried out to Him. He turned me back to my own book and one of my poems, entitled "Silence". One of the accompanying photographs is at the bottom of the page this week. Here is the closing stanza:

You are silent ~ I am lost

Impossible to navigate without direction

Foolish to attempt to sail alone

Frozen by fear of movement

Doomed to drift until hull crashes on rocky shore

Then He began talking to me. Despite all that I knew, the many times I had advised others about staying in the Eye of the Storm, I had allowed myself to be sucked out into the winds again. I was totally exhausted by dodging the debris of life and my ears were de-sensitized by its howling winds. There was no way that I could hear His voice in the midst of this din.

So here is the dilemma. There was nothing during this period of time to which I could have said no. These were important obligations; in fact these were tasks that I did with love in my heart for people that I deeply love. It just so happened that the timing was such that it was a bit crazy. Don't we all have this happen to us? Life is not of our choosing - it just happens to us. Yet for some reason we all make this effort to keep control of it.

There is a distinct difference in walking out what God places in front of us to do and trying to control our lives. Most of us, myself included, have spent so much of our lives in the control mode that we do not realize that we are operating in it. Yet once the exhaustion sets in, if we step back from it, we might recognize it.

For me I am just now beginning to understand how I responded to the tornado winds of this past period of time. I tried to maintain total normal life order in spite of the fact that there was nothing normal about this period of time. I have spent a lifetime living up to my perception of other's expectations of me. So under the stress of abnormal times, I slip back into old behaviors of trying to keep every ball in the air that comes my way. Living up to the labels that have now lovingly and historically sarcastically been attached to me.

Why do I feel it necessary to believe any of this when I know who I am in Christ? Because I am still a triune person composed of a regenerated spirit, but a soul and flesh that are continually striving to come to the level of that fresh spirit. I am vulnerable and am a work in progress needing my Holy Spirit. I can only do the best I can do under any given circumstances. There are times when I have to let some things go.

If I want to continue to hear the voice of my Comforter and my Counselor, then I have to be sure that I am making time each and every day for Him in spite of the crazies of the days in which I am operating. I have to prioritize what is coming my way and when new demands are placed on my time, then perhaps some of the normal daily tasks must go on the back burner for a while. There is not a single thing that comes into my life of which God is not completely aware. But He is the Lover of my life and He is a jealous Lover and will not sacrifice His time with me. However, He is expecting me to make a choice with the "things" in my life to insure that there is time for Him. The question is what will I choose? Do I covet His voice? Do I crave His Love over everything else in my life or am I sacrificing Him for someone or something else?

The silence of this morning as I began to meditate on this blog was a profound lesson for me. I need desperately to Him constantly, not just Monday mornings. I am so accustomed to hearing Him regularly that to not hear Him specifically for a purpose was a profound wake up call. Don't get caught off guard. He wants to hear your voice too. He covets your love. He is waiting to be with you, but He wants you to make that choice. Are you choosing Him today? Or are you drifting in Silence?

Do It for ME

God, I am really not liking this situation in which I find myself. Talk about thorns in my side! I am trying to do what you have been calling me to do, focusing on those tasks. Then wham! out of the blue ~ sideswiped! My fleshly emotions rage up like a tempest, a powerful summer thunderstorm. I know that I have to rearrange my life and no matter what the cost, take care of this situation, but I find myself saying to You, "Lord, they won't even realize the cost of what they are asking!" Then I hear your quiet even tones, "I know, I know. Just do it for Me and forget about them." Suddenly I am convicted by the childishness of my own words: they don't realize the cost of what they are asking. The chills literally run through my entire body. Jesus could have said the same thing to Abba Father when they discussed in heaven what faced Him once he took residence in Mary's womb. But He didn't; He chose obedience to the Father over selfishness. And now He is saying to me, Do it for Me.

How do we translate that into our daily lives? What was He really saying to me as my emotions raged and I struggled with my anger and my lack of control over the events of my life? Several important points were made by the Lord which enabled me to transition away from the storm that was raging around me and seek the peace and comfort that is found in the eye of that same storm. Many of you are confronted by the same issues that I am. So my prayer for you at this very moment is that what was revealed to me will bring you comfort and guidance.

First, the Lord of Heaven's armies is battling for the heart of the very individual who is causing you such torment. Seriously. He loves that person as much as He loves you ~ no more and no less. He desires for them to be as close to Him as you are, or perhaps for both of you to be closer than you currently are. When we realize that these battles we are fighting are against principalities and not people, we can begin to shift our own focus and stop targeting a person as the "cactus" we landed on. They are simply being used as a catalyst and we have to get our eyes off of them onto the Lord where they belong.

Second we have a choice. We can choose to "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." James 1:2-4 Or we can choose to fret and stew, complaining all the way as we go down the road that is in front of us. Now that is really Christ-like behavior isn't it? In all sincerity, we really do have a choice. Many of us will plod through the situation and just grumble under our breath, smiling on the outside but wrestling on the inside. We will act like everything is cool with us, but in reality we are miserable. That is not what James is advising. Pure joy means exactly what it says: learn to release those anxious emotions about the situation and look at what God is going to do with you as a result.

Third and for me what was the final breakthrough, I realized when He says, "Do it for ME" He is also saying I will be the One who will be watching you and marveling in you. It dawned on me, one more time, the truth in "But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal." Matthew 6:20 The Lord assured me that even though the people for whom I was making the sacrifices were not concerned about it, He knew what was involved and was paying attention. He said to me, "You are not doing this for thank you's from them. You are doing this for Me. My thanks is all you need." He was so right. My heart became lighter and I immediately began to praise and worship Him with gladness in my heart and dance in my spirit. There was a reversal in my mood and my countenance. How can I reflect His light if I am letting clouds of gloom and doom darken my reflecting glass?

Now when a difficult person or situation comes my way, I am going to try very hard to remember the lesson that He has so lovingly taught me. ( We have such a patient and loving Lord.) It is not about the person that is in front of me which seems to be causing me difficulty in this moment in time. This is about learning to love my Lord in a new way. To be obedient at a different level and to show Him that no matter what comes my way, I can handle it with pure joy. I know that I am still learning how to do this, but walking in pure joy through difficulties sure beats swimming upstream!!

Knowing Him Intimately

Do you remember the first time that Genesis 4:1 was explained to you? "Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain", then all of the other "knew's" exploded throughout the Old Testament. You were most likely a youth possibly a child and the explanation fit whatever level of maturity you had at that moment. The use of the word know/knew in the bible indicates a much deeper knowledge of the subject/person at hand than just being merely acquainted. In tracking lineage we comprehend that when one Biblical figure "knew" another biblical figure that meant they had conceived a child. That is definitely considered intimate relations versus a handshake acquaintance.

Have you ever personalized "know" in this manner as it relates to you and the Lord? I think a few of you just fell off your chairs. :-) Seriously, let's start at the end and then go back to the beginning. Revelation 21:9 - "Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls filled with the seven last plagues came to me and talked with me saying, 'Come, I will show you the bride, the Lamb's wife.'" The chapter goes on to describe those who are saved and walking in the Lamb's light, those who are written in the Lamb's Book of life. So if we are the Lamb's wife, does it not follow that we should know Him intimately? We should but for many of us this is not something that we have been taught throughout our lives. For many of us this is a difficult and foreign concept.

This past weekend I witnessed a multitude of women experience the progression from acquaintance to intimacy. We were all part of a wonderful retreat called Holy Spirit Encounter. As these women arrived Thursday night the vast majority had no idea what the Lord had in store for them. They knew only that they had a "date" with Holy Spirit that had been set since the foundations of time. Fortunately they accepted the invitation for their individual dates. What transpired was different for each person, but what was the same was the entrance into the intimacy of the bridal chamber with Him. Until we understand that He wants to "know" each of us intimately, have access to our deepest thoughts, fears, desires, hurts, dreams, etc., He cannot empower us to grow and be all that He designed us to be from the beginning.

My own journey into intimacy with Him began after I arrived in Georgia and was utterly and totally alone. I depended on Him for everything. I had no one in my life here in Georgia to support me emotionally. I was financially overwhelmed. I missed my family desperately. I had no connections with anyone locally to help buffet the storms that threatened to drown me. Yet my Lord began to draw me into the bridal chamber with Him and show me that I could lean on Him in ways that I had never understood before. I began to hear His voice all of the time, hear Him consoling me, hear Him loving me, comforting me when everything around me was dark and cold. Before I realized it had happened, an extraordinary peace had overtaken my life and my spirit. I was "in love" with my Lord, passionately. I understood as never before what Jesus meant when He said, "And I will ask the Father,and He will give you another Counselor to be with you forever - the Spirit of Truth. The world cannot accept Him, for He lives with you and will be in you." John 14: 16-17 Holy Spirit is living in me and is alive and speaking wisdom and counsel and love into me minute by minute. I could not imagine my life without Him. The intimacy is tangible.

The change in my life since permitting access to Holy Spirit and seeking an intimate relationship with Him became a focus for celebration for me this weekend. We had the awesome opportunity to baptize a number of our women guests in the lake on premises at our retreat center. As I assisted these wonderful, excited women into the water each time, Holy Spirit was whispering to me. When I had accepted Jesus as my personal savior back in 1989, I did not have a clue about the power and importance of Holy Spirit. My life and my ministry have changed so dramatically as a result of the manifestation of His power. When the last person came out of the water, He said, "Let's celebrate My glory in your changed life." So I walked on down into the water and became the 21st lady to be baptized.

If you do not have an intimate relationship with Holy Spirit now and only have a walking acquaintance with Him, I invite you to go deep, go very deep. I witnessed incredibly changed lives this weekend because women were not afraid to pursue Him as their lover. He is your lover, He is your Bridegroom. Let us all "know" Him whether man or woman, so that when He comes to get us, He will "know" us.