Red Sea Situations

“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.”

Exodus 17:2-7

“So Moses said to them, “Why do you contend with me? Why do you tempt the LORD?” And the people thirsted there for water, and the people complained against Moses, and said, “Why is it you have brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?”

So Moses cried out to the LORD, saying, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me!”

And the LORD said to Moses, “Go on before the people, and take with you some of the elders of Israel. Also take in your hand your rod with which you struck the river, and go. Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock in Horeb; and you shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it, that the people may drink.”

And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. So he called the name of the place Massah[a] and Meribah,because of the contention of the children of Israel, and because they tempted the LORD, saying, “Is the LORD among us or not?”

Other  scriptures for meditation: I Samuel 2:2, John 15:4, I Peter 2:6, Matthew 7: 24, 25

Key Question: What secures my confidence in Christ?

What you BELIEVE and what you EXPECT can transform your  life. Trusting God isn’t always easy. It does help to know His  name as Jehovah Tsuri. The Lord is your Rock. He can meet a thirst in you even in the most desperate times. He did for the children of Israel when they were thirsty and demanded answers in times of hardship. Shortly thereafter, He became their victory. Psalm 125:1, 2 says: ” those who trust in the LORD are like Mount Zion, which cannot be moved, but abides forever. As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the LORD surrounds His people from this time forth and forever.

Your Altar to Build: Jehovah Tsuri – The Lord My Rock

In acknowledging God’s faithfulness, I commit myself to His divine protection, which helps me to abide in Him, and He in me.

 Your  Affirmation/ Pattern to Begin Living:

I choose to expect God to move on my behalf.  I rely on His faithfulness as my security. The more I depend upon Him, the more I shall be sustained.

My Exchange &  My Prayer:  Lord, I choose to trust far above my circumstances, my situation, my ability, my thought life, my fears, my means of stability, my desires of the moment. As I do, I believe in Your ability - and not my own. I trust I am kept in the safety of your arms. I find refuge in you. 

 Selah.

Follow Me. Yes, Follow Me, Jenn.

I heard these words this morning. I heard  Him say in my quiet time: “Following me is a concept.” Well, …I thought I would interpret this word “conceptualization“.  Concepts are word and ideas interpreted over a series of  occurrences.

I have had plenty ”occurrences”  lately to inform me God is leading me down a different pathway. Should  I  follow?  It’s scary, unknown and may be full of surprises. What should I do??

I am on the brink of a  few life decisions.  Of choosing and pursuing  different paths.  And God says… “Follow Me.” Though I hesitate, it’s quite exciting to know God has so much more in store for me,  more than I’ve imagined. I must make a decision to believe in Ephesians 3:20. It says:  “Now to Him Who, by (in consequence of) the [action of His] power that is at work within us, is able to [carry out His purpose and] do superabundantly, far over and above all that we [dare] ask or think [infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, hopes, or dreams]–To Him be glory…and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever. Amen (so be it).”

God shared with me this morning that following Him is  not so much a matter of obedience. It is more a way of life and thought life than it is a mode of behavior. It’s more an analogy, than it is the thought life of: “ Can I even fathom of leaving everything behind?” You come to a crossroads in your life,  basically. It’ s more of a way of having a thought life about what’s important, and what’s more important than my life, and my living, in order that I might take some serious risks to get to a new place.  New places are scary for so many people. It’s because it’s unknown territory. When the Children of Israel were encouraged to take flight and leave Egypt, they had to leave their comfort zones. Everything they knew that was familiar, had to become extinct. People are sometimes challenged to leave things behind they never would have considered leaving behind, or risking leaving a lifestyle they were are used to - and thusly, they believe  the life they have always dreamed about, will not come to pass.   This is not true.  God wants you to dream.

In retrospect, leaving things behind and following God causes them to take chances at opportunities they have never imagined.

Dreams craft our future. Dreams tell us prophetically – where will will go. Dreams define our future. They help us to aspire and set goals for a purposed future. Help us to discover what our lives can sincerely be like if we should Follow Him. To dream without God is like trying to wear a crown without jewels. What makes wearing a crown special, is the royalty and the regality involved in how proudly you wear it.

God has a crown for you. Dont limit yourself by selling out to an unfulfilled promise He would have given you had you simply obeyed Him.

Follow Him. His name is El Shophet – he is the Lord God our Decider, or Judge. He is the God that bring us into right relationship with Him.

Selah.

“In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?”  ESV

I heard an interesting story the other day that made me think about how Jesus must really have MORE for us than we could have imagined.  We speak as if this world ends, ans then its the last of what we will ever have.  Yet I have always “begged to differ”… check out this story….

A friend of mine had a dream about her daughter who passed away, and indicated that  on her dream, her daughter was having the time of her life, taking care of children in heaven, who were obviously filled with tremendous ‘glee’ as a result of her care. My friend  says she walked up to the conversation,  and Jesus was ending it saying unto her  ~”I’m so glad you came… I needed you here to HELP ME with all of these children!”

 It made me think of my assignment here on earth, and whether I am really here to endure and just complete an asisgnment on earth, so God can say “well done“… or is He really preparing me for something else, so when I get there - I am fully into my purpose? Hmmm…

The assignment I have here on earth, blesses me and makes me happy, currently – but I am certain the ones I have yet to witness  and experience in heaven, will make me MUCH MORE fulfilled. Being here on earth is very hard sometimes. It’s hard at times to imagine God might have so much more for us in a better place. Yet, in actuality its in God’s nature to give us even better than what we have every imagined.  It is my prayer that He will give me a taste of of heaven here on earth, but that I also might ~ like Paul become “more and more acquainted with Him“.. so that when I get to heaven I won’t find anything too surprising or strange! I want to come into the TRUE reason for my being while here in earth… and recognize my purpose “beforehand” on earth so my assignment is well accomplished  in heaven.

 I believe God’s assignments require of you a “Yes Lord”  in order that you might work the work of the Kingdom. First, here on earth – then I believe in heaven. God knows you have needs. He won’t leave you without resources. Even more so for those with a work He has called them to do. There are times when we find things to be such a struggle, but if only we would say: “Yes Lord” we would then be able to recognize we have been “Sent “to do His work. Sometimes the work – though it may be a struggle and very challenging, it may be the preparation you will actually NEED in heaven. God wants you preapared,… a bride… prepared for Him when He comes back. Be ye also ready!

Hmmm…spend some time today in consideration. God loves you just that much.

 Selah.

Just a meditational thought this morning…

I read this in my devotional today about the “character”  of Children of Israel.

“ They never entered into the Promised Land. Why? They never took what they knew in their head and transferred it to their heart. Finally, it never resulted in actions that were based on what they believed.”

~ Os Hillman

Interesting how we take what we learn from  “our heads to hearts”. It’s a process. We have to “experience” something before I can actually live it.  The concept of learning “lesson”; either well –received or completely ignored… can either teach you how to walk, or make your walk more crooked. Application isn’t an easy process. However, it’s ‘good stuff’, once applied.

Sometimes we walk in the “wilderness” despite our Red Sea Situations. Despite what we have seen God bring us through. It’s amazing how miracles actually occur. Some miracles come by faith- by saying “yes Lord” on a daily basis.  Some come by sacrifice  & obedience – Abraham saying: ” I will sacrifice my son… despite how I feel.  Some miracles come by surrender –  and yet others happen because we are completely determined and we desire only God’s best in our lives.

Some of us don’t even regard the heart. We just live. We act only as if life is to be lived, not given. As if life is something that comes as ride we jump on, and get the best out of – yet we don’t have to consider our hearts,  morals and integrity. We treat life as if our worth and value didn’t depend upon someone else’s success.

Life is what you make of it.

It’s not a story you tell, and then laugh at it’s ups and downs… it’s a purpose you live, and a call you cherish – because of what you have been given by God to influence his kingdom and help others reign with Him forever.

Selah.