Red Sea Situations

Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you…Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up. James 4: 8, 9,10

I was in deep thought this morning about loss and how it can dramatically impact lives.  I decided to write about it, because it helps to have perspective around everything.

There is a God that longs to meet you in your grief if only you’d allow Him to. This passage of scripture encourages us to “be afflicted, to mourn and to weep.” There is medicinal purpose in allowing grief to help assist you in the healing process.

I’ve worked as a social worker in a psychiatric setting, and it amazes me to the degree that people suffer from mental and emotional stress from loss.  Sorrow affects you from a very deep place. Some diligently guard over it, as if were some sort of treasure. As if this burden they carry were something they had to guard over with lock and key – and if opened, it would lose a Pandora’s Box full of emotion they are neither ready nor willing to address.  The truth is: unless this Pandora’s Box of grief in your life is opened, you will never experience true freedom in your life.  The cloud of despair it takes in order to cause one to overcome it can be absolutely draining to your soul. In fact, it may take all you have to keep going. Dreams may possibly never be realized, and your grief may sap all of your emotional and spiritual strength. There are some who experience perpetual grief, and others who experience anticipatory grief. Even though you may have lost, you still anticipate more of what you will lose, and it clouds your future, your hopes and dreams. It even numbs you the point you cannot enjoy the present life, and your family and friends.

What are you grieving today that has buried you in an early grave? It’ s likely, if you cannot even remember what joy feels like and your sense of despondency drains your energy from day to day, you may not be fully alive.  Is guilt lingering over that last decision you made? Are you constantly noticing you live in the past and the future is unimaginable, and the present too distant to recall?

Many think of grief as death. Ironically, it is, but not always like you think. It may have to deal with your house, your estranged spouse in your marriage, a lost loved one, a major change or transition, the loss of a friendship – a child who passed, yet even if they have not passed, but are no longer in your presence. Grief comes also in the form of relocation to a new state or major transition with a career, or it may be a divorce, or the death of a pet you once loved.

The pain of grief and the sorrow that accompanies it, can either cloud your future, or transform your life. God desires to Shepherd over our life in such a way that we allow Him as Shepherd, to guard our hearts and minds from such utter despair. It’s hard when you are grieving to see God as a loving God. But what the character of God can reveal to you in your grief experience can provide a radical approach to how you deal with change.

I cannot say that I know the purpose of grief and loss, but I can say that I have experienced it. I will share a story that can help you to see more clearly the purpose it had in my life, and how God meant to provide healing, and not harm.

Read on – to be encouraged in this exhortation: The God Who Watches Over Your Grief.

Revelation 5:9,10

 …And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals…and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.”

I began writing yesterday, after a long hiatus. It appeared everything had come to a halt. Of course, I love writing, as you may be able to tell. But one of the things a writer needs in order to write, is order and structure in their writing setting. It helps with the flow of the writing and also the clarity of mind.

Order effects your level of superiority/leadership, your communication, your thought life, your ability to make provision, your behavior and temperament, your ability to follow instruction, your  relationships,  exercise humility and even the level of respect you receive in relationships. Some have even been promoted on a job, due the level of order they maintain in their lives, because their job requires that level of detail.

Well…I confess. I really hadn’t considered the importance of order and how it also affects my energy level, my inability to receive information, be open minded or even tolerant to certain ideas or concentrate on certain subjects. I also had not considered how a cluttered environment also affected me in terms of being open to being able to be “present” before others and converse, or simply “be”.  I am one who masters the art of “being”. I love as an introvert to sink deeply into a chair with a good book, and a cup of tea, and just go into ‘book heaven’.

Even the ability to notice and fall in line with the patterns of life, or to be syncopated with the rhythm of the earth – you will miss –  when your life is out of balance. Perhaps even the last few months of my life, I may have been struggling here, because someone out in ‘reader world’ needed this kind of perspective. Perhaps even, I needed it, in order to work on some kind of alignment into my own life.

When I look up the word order in the thesaurus, I notice words like – management progression and system. The word direction popped up more than once, as well. How about this: to “govern” – wow… that means there’s more power than I realized that order brings! I guess it’s time to step up into the righteous call on my life.  It’s time for many things to be accomplished, and I really don’t have time to waste.

In order to govern, you have to have a HUGE impact on someone in terms of influence and the ability to rule or regulate.  You also have to be trusted with this level of ruling, or you will make some grave mistakes and hurt many.  For example, I cannot regulate my child’s behavior, if my own behavior isn’t submitted unto God. I cannot even regulate the order of my own office, if I have not submitted to the order of God.  The more order you have, the more you are likely to find yourself in the likes of being one who reigns with Him, and he gives you the grace to occupy this space. I need to consider order as an assignment…not a chore.

After all… isn’t that what kings and priests do?

John 19:31-37
“It was the day of preparation, … One of the soldiers, however, pierced his side with a spear, and immediately blood and water flowed out. (This report is from an eyewitness giving an accurate account. He speaks the truth so that you also can believe. These things happened in fulfillment of the Scriptures that say, “Not one of his bones will be broken,…They will look on the one they pierced.”

I am re-posting this blog, because it speaks to the essence of this Resurrection Sunday. Jesus shall erase the scars in our lives that would be present should we kept on in the pain and hurt and harm of our lives. When we surrender to His Love and guidance & divine protection, we have life preservation. Eternal life is what was given Him, because He endured, and took on the piercing.

Once, when I was about eleven years old, I almost drowned. I was in the pool alone, but others were nearby. – The experience of having almost drowned could have severely scarred me for life. Fortunately, this was not the case. Let me share my story. I was in the shallow end of the pool – walking in middle – with no barrier between the shallow and deep end of the pool, and I sunk. Just like that. Nothing to hold onto. As I opened my mouth to yell for help, it sounded like “elp!” My mouth began to fill with water, but I never had time to panic. I could l barely take another breath to stay afloat. A few others were nearby, but speaking very intensely to one another so they did not recognize my plight.

I recall being afraid and also praying intently and recognizing that God was with me. I said within:” God help me, they don’t hear me!” The next thing I knew after about two or three jumps and leaps up – I was at the side of the pool and holding onto the rail. I was safe. And God’s angels had protected me. I cannot explain how I knew there was an angel in that pool with me, that day, but I am alive and well today to tell the story. (Everyone else outside of the pool had been oblivious to my scare.) When I resurfaced, I surely didn’t offer the information. I was scared and trembling, and I recall sitting there thinking: I could have died… but I didn’t say a word. I just kept it a secret between me and God.

This experience has made me not very comfortable with being in a pool alone, today – yet I am not afraid of water. In fact, I love it. But what most amazes me – is that as a child,… I understood the power of surrendering to my higher power: Jesus! But even more amazing is this: I escaped the power of death ~ even at eleven years old.

I have been through periods in my life where tragedy and death were almost certain. Yet I have never given up. Sometimes I ponder in my mind why I didn’t say a word. Then.. while in the shower today… it occurred to me… neither did Jesus. When he was in a death situation and death was imminent… He didn’t speak either. In fact, while He was on the cross ~ when He was pierced in His side and water poured out – although dead, Jesus had not surrendered to death. He had surrendered to His Father’s will. Selah. (pause and calmly think of that.)

I have been through so many challenges that my approach today to very difficult dilemmas in my life have a greater and more broad approach than I have had in the past. In fact, I was just talking to a friend today about how I embrace changes today vs. how I did ten years ago. In 2000, I was a totally different person. Facing challenges were common day living for me. I was basically “swimming to stay afloat”. But I didn’t drown. I believe I now know why.

Because today, I reflect upon what could have been “death situations” in my life as a sustainment process. Maybe that’s what Jesus’ piercing process was all about… that even though it appeared as if He was already dead ~ He didn’t give up~ not completely. Hmm… maybe surrendering to the piercing process then is ‘really’ what sustains you. Maybe the situation you think will really kill you ~really won’t. I believe the secret Jesus kept in that little girl – at the age of eleven sustained her for years to come.

Sometimes, like Jesus ~ we pray to God and ask the cup to be removed, but I wonder… if God removed the cup, you may not have known how you could have  lived out the rest of the story. Maybe even with you , “others will look upon your piercing process, as well.” So I admire Jesus for this very reason… “He went a little further.”

Matthew 26:39 “And He went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.” (KJV)

As I think about this approaching Resurrection Sunday, I think about how my heart needs to rest in peace, for what occurred on Good Friday and the following Easter Sunday.

I woke up this morning realizing something wasn’t right. I struggled to find myself and find my soul – ( my mind, will and emotions). I stumbled upon this  realization: I needed to go deeper. There are some things that we need not endure, for the sake of simple prioritization.

So I began to prioritize my God.

I began to cry out to God, and asked for more of Him.  I wanted Him to show me if there was any sin was in my life. (I reached for Him… & decided to pray on on my face, – so I could hear Him better.)  If you have never assumed this position, you may be missing out on something precious from the Lord.  True humility begins in the place of a humbled soul. Its in those places of desperation & sincerity before Him – where we meet God and we see Him face to face.

Jesus didn’t just go to sleep on Resurrection weekend and wake up with all power in His hands. He went to hell, redeemed our lives and brought back keys we needed, in order to endure and triumph on this earth.  If you don’t have any answers today, it isn’t because they are available to you. It may be because you need to go a bit deeper, like He did.

Press in a little deeper, to see God’s face and experience Him on a more intimate and deeper level than you ever have.

My prayer today:

“Heal my heart and make it clean
Open up my eyes to the things unseen,
Show me how to love like you have loved me -

Break my heart for what breaks yours,
Everything I am for your Kingdom’s cause,
As I walk from earth in to Eternity…”
( Words to Hosanna, by Hillsong)~ Listen to the song today…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXCoHxX1OC8

He is Risen.

“For with God nothing shall be impossible.” Luke 1:37

“The righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.” Matt 13:43

(This is a continuation of Holy Dreams – Part I)

This is a picture of me, in South Africa near a beautiful tree. I chose this picture to post, because I remember the feeling I had when I saw this tree. I will never see a tree the same, because of a story I heard in South Africa. A teenager taught me something about people. She said: “We are all trees. “ She was speaking of our strength. We have a strength in us that is surreal. We have a resilience within that only comes from God. When we can recognize it, nothing shall be impossible unto us.

There is a place in God – where if we truly want to SEE God move, our resilience has to be coupled with God’s power. We must have a sincere belief that “I can trust God to the max.  This is the mindset God wants us to have. God calls us all the time.

“Come…” - He says. But … Do we listen?

What will it take to get us to believe that God is a RESPONSIVE God? That He genuinely cares for us, and wants us to covenant with Him, in the deep dark, secret and even tremendously confounding and troubling issues in our lives?

What will it take us to understand that His nature is to be ‘Melek’: (The Lord as King) in your life?

God has not forgotten you.

Be still and know He is God. (Psalm 43:10) There’s a place inside of you that seems to cause you worry and frustration and reservation, places where you hold back, because you believe God has forgotten that you have that desire. God is not slack concerning His promises and neither does He desire that you be given less than what He has intended. Be still and know that he is God. He reigns and desires to bring to pass, just what is your heart’s desire. Ask God to extend His kingdom in you – by working in and through you.

Did you know there’s a place in God where you must receive His grace to go forward in your life and receive answers to your prayers in faith that He has heard you? God‘s nature is to redeem His people, and in His redemptive nature, God attempts to also bring us back into a place where we are in a place to fully receive our inheritance in the Lord. In order to know that we reign and rule in His stead and in His place of living and doing, and having our being in Him, we must worship Him as Melek.

So Matthew 4:30 indicates Jesus’ responsiveness to Peter- not only was it physical, it reached him in an emotional place as well. “And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?” If we get stuck in our emotions, we need to give them to God. He wants to reign even over our emotional health. Surrender this area of your life to God. Ask Him how to begin to think and respond again to things that tear you up inside. As believers the Word says we have the mind of Christ. (I Corinthians 2:16) And what a beautiful mind that is. Walk in the belief of this promise.

Live life as if your very being depends upon its success.  How can we truly embrace all God has for us, unless we are SOLD OUT to living for Him? We cannot say on one hand “life is so challenging to live”, yet we don’t fully embrace all it has for us – by and through the One who created it. God left behind an instruction manual. His Word. How do you expect to live a life that He created, (successfully) without His help? Living life by acknowledging the holiness of the Creator is how we reach our dreams. Agreeing with His plan for our lives and living it to the fullest, is a part of the sacrifice.

We need to ask ourselves: “What my requirement?”  Or …What truly moves the heart of my God?

If you don’t know, it’s not because you don’t have “several examples” of believers in His Word. It’s because the prophets of old took drastic steps and risks, we can believe.  Some think the miracles of that day were only for that time. That’s absolutely not true. God still moves stones.  You can speak to mountains and they will move. (Maybe not literally, but definitely figuratively). And sometimes the figurative faith, turns into the natural faith. If you’d only believe.

Peter had resolved this scripture above within himself: “Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it.”~ He determined in his heart that he could not fit into the mindset of this culture and live with the passion and intensity that God wanted Him to live in, by living in fear. He decided that His focus needed to be so keen, he would fix his eyes on God… and even if he failed and faltered, Jesus would STILL be faithful. He had learned this was Jesus’ nature, to be responsive.

You have to be settled in the belief of who you believe God to be, in your heart.

I have decided this: based on what I know about God’s character, I will respond to it. If God truly rules over everything in love, then He will respond to me as El Olam. If God is truly my Rock, He will be strength (Jehovah Tsuri), when I need Him. If God is my Provision, He will be Jehovah Jireh, and provide when I am without.

Here’s the kicker… will you believe who God is, when you have to truly stand on what you believe??

Dreams are hard to believe God for… but only if you have not fully grasped the faithfulness and depth of His character.

Everyone claims Peter had a problem and he was crazy for doing what he did… yet I say… Peter knew something about God’s Son, many of us really didn’t know.

Selah.

Romans 12:1, 2
“So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.”

I never imagined this scripture would become so real in my life. How must you place your ’sleeping’ before God? Your eating, and going to work? …your daily regular life – and place it before God as an offering?

What does that mean?

Well…sleeping, is just something I have placed before God. This title came to me at 3am, and instead of going back to sleep, I just got up and wrote it…because I decided long ago, my sleep doesn’t belong to me. A very long time ago I realized that in order to write a good article, I have to get up when the article hit my mind & my head - and not when I feel like getting up, because I lose the content and the essence of it. (I believe that captures the ’sleeping quote’ of this verse.) In order words – this passion I have deep inside of me is worth getting up for. I realize this dream I have to write, and to make a living at it, is a gift and that gift-   given back to God – can create a miracle in the life of someone else, if they can sacrifice the way God would have them to sacrifice, because of  MY sacrifice.

The writer says the best thing you can do with this life, is to embrace what God does for you. How can you embrace what God does for you, even before you do it? Well, let me explain. Yesterday, I took a leap of faith. (At the last minute). Something came to me, and I stepped out believing God for something I wanted.  It was a huge dream of mine. I figured it must have been God’s will, because I wasn’t even thinking about it.  Yet, it was also my heart’s desire. (And I knew God knew that about me.) Have you ever felt like God dangled something in your face to see what you would do?  It may be just because — He really does want to see what you would do.

So I sacrificed several hours to do something I believed in strongly, (I sacrificed the time I would’ve possibly been watching TV or something else…), and I just said: “I will take the risk. “I don’t know the outcome of that risk (yet), but here’s what I did do: I reminded God of His promise unto me, and that it involved such special things. I communicated to Him gently, that if he gave me this dream, I would use it for His glory. All I know is this:  This was a dream that I strongly believed in, and an opportunity arose to fulfill it, so I stepped out in faith. Peter did that. He said to Jesus, on a boat in the middle of a sea, “If it be thou, Lord - bid me come unto thee on the water… And He said, Come.” Now, Peter’s friends must have thought it was a ghost… because that’s what Matthew wrote, in this passage. (Yet ghosts don’t reach out and save you when you are drowning.) I think to myself when I read this, Now…what made a grown man defy the odds – and step out of a place of comfort and security, to step out and defy all gravity!

The answer: His faith in God.

Faith in God is what gives you the audacity to believe.

Here’s the key to walking in true faith: Even if we don’t trust God through circumstances, we need to take steps as if we did.

James 2:17-24, 26 says “In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”  Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do. You foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? Was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness, and he was called God’s friend. You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone….as the body without the spirit is dead, so is faith without deeds is dead.”

Take a step today… it may lead to a miracle.

Selah.

“He has made everything beautiful in its time and that there is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under Heaven. “ Ecclesiastes 3:1,11.

So what is Divine Patience?

Thank God for mentors in my life! Well…recently one of my girlfriends informed me that God was placing “divine patience” in me, despite my resistance to receiving it. I’d been going through a tremendously hard time trying to figure out just what God was doing, and WHY it was taking so long.  I do not recommend trying to figure out what God is doing. It’s very stressful.

But I believe I now know. In  order  for God to produce a really BIG piece of fruit, in your life, it has to going through all the cycles of seeding. A seed has to die before it can live. ( see 1 Corinthians 15:36) The coating and protection over the seed  has to disintegrate, first.  It has to have the right soil, the right amount of sunlight, and the right amount of water in order for it  to grow.

Did you know a seed has its own food supply? It also grows down into the ground before it grows up and outward to produce a stem. It has to be rooted, first.

Sometimes God uses patience to help us also endure  the same process. Patience is a fruit of the spirit. For God to describe patience as a fruit, is a blessing. (see Galatians 5:22,23)  Fruit is defined as “anything produced or accruing; product, result, or effect; return or profit. To enjoy the produce of.” The Bible says against such character, no one can  bring a charge.

I recall my waiting period to  be full of frustration, feeling  stressed and tremendously upset with God. I heard Joyce Meyers say once: “ when you feel frustrated, your flesh is in the way.” To me, that meant there should be less of me, and more of God’s perspective in my life.

So .. to get my flesh out of the way, I decided to simply call a solemn fast. I moved everything – and I do mean everything, out of the way so I could clearly hear from God. My friend who gave me the advice earlier…did something similar. She had been trying to fulfill  a dream to do something for years she could not figure out. She said “ once i stopped trying to figure it out…” that’s when God stepped in. This morning I released something to God I could not handle. It  felt so much better to not try to figure it out.

So, in the midst of our Red Sea situations… we both pondered a few things. For me, it was my lack of control over it all, and for her the need to receive  her harvest- God’s way. I just spoke to her the other day and God answered her prayer. He figured it out.  Here’s what she said to me: “So, here I am.  Now, I am waiting for His leading on what His next provision will be for me. … Divine patience reminds me that yes, I can make things happen, but when He does it for me, it comes out much better!”

Another valuable piece she taught me was to ‘pay attention to the condition of your heart‘ when you struggle in this manner. She said : “we must be willing to accept the situation as it comes. Especially since it may not be in the way we wanted it or at the time we expected it. Can I be content with His provision if it does not match my expectations?  The acceptance of the way things have turned out and are continuing to move is part of the divine patience.”  Yes, we still have to “wait on Him” to wait on God to move, but we can believe he will take care of us in the process of it all, and have our best interest at heart.

Wow.. what powerful encouragement today. I believe I will just  choose to surrender to the cycle of my seeding process. God know how that miracle takes place much better than I.

Selah.

I Corinthians 15:35-38  The Message Bible

“Some skeptic is sure to ask, “Show me how resurrection works. Give me a diagram; draw me a picture. What does this ‘resurrection body’ look like?” If you look at this question closely, you realize how absurd it is. There are no diagrams for this kind of thing. We do have a parallel experience in gardening. You plant a “dead” seed; soon there is a flourishing plant. There is no visual likeness between seed and plant. You could never guess what a tomato would look like by looking at a tomato seed. What we plant in the soil and what grows out of it don’t look anything alike. The dead body that we bury in the ground and the resurrection body that comes from it will be dramatically different.”