The Spirit calls to me this morning out of the dark and early watches of the night. The enemy is very active in these hours, just after midnight. I call these the "witching hours". These are the hours on the clock when I am most vulnerable to mental attack. I am seemingly too sleepy to even realize the intrusion of that dark evil snake that Eve ran into way back when.
The Words of my Beloved are comforting, "I never sleep so you are safe." Psalm 121, "I lift my eyes up to the hills, where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord". That promise and fact is good in both the day and the nighttime hours.
"I, the Lord do not change so you, Oh descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed" Malachi 3:6
"The Lord is my helper so I will not be afraid", "I will never leave you nor forsake you", "Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever". Heb 13
The promises cascade out of a mental storehouse of God's Blessed Word, committed there to memory over the years of study. I am so thankful in these days for all the Lord has taught me over all the years. Whether it is my age or our close proximity to the Return of our King, the battle seems to be ratcheting up on earth.
For me, the mental assault comes in the form of conflict. Jeremiah spoke of it when he lapsed and asked the Lord from his human doubts, "will you be to me like a deceptive brook, a spring that fails?" (Jeremiah 15:18)
One of the most amazing things about the Sacred Romance with the King of Kings, is that we can be totally honest about our feelings and outspoken about our fears without any risk of retaliation from the One who holds our next breath and commands the winds of adversity to "stand down".
Even as I read all of the great promises, He has made available to those of us who love Him, when we doubt, it is permissible to speak and very appropriate to confer with our wise Counselor.
Today I am compelled to question the swirling conflict I feel around me and in me. There is such anxiety to the clock and calendar I live with. I feel like that White Rabbit who kept repeating, "I'm late, I'm late for a very important date".
"Beloved, you strive too much", was His gentle response. "My servants are pressured by self-expectations to do more than I am asking of them. Many are making themselves sick in the striving and need to be at rest".
Then He reminds me of my Lord's days upon the earth. His pace was slow, consistent with the society He was born into: no internet, no plane travel, no cell phones. Yet He came to show us the Father with a model that is still relevant today and a message that is meant for all mankind regardless of the world we entered at birth.
The weariness we feel, in part, has to do with all the knowledge we possess and have yet to gain. Processing all the input is more than a full-time job, one we were not originally wired for. I understand this from looking back to the day of the fall when the fruit from the forbidden tree was consumed.
There is always a reason for the forbidden by God, and it has to do with our best interests. The fruit from this tree represented a threat to humanity's peace and relationship with our Creator. The "knowledge of good and evil" is vexing to our human mind. We are simply not created (wired) to handle it all and mental conflict results.
Conflict in the human mind breaks down the human body. That is why the Gospel (Good News) is so critical to our health and well-being here and not just when we leave planet earth for our eternal destination.
As I think about the "Word" the Holy One is speaking, I am drawn back to the life of God (Jesus) wrapped in flesh. For all there is to understand and see in what He did, other great lessons can be gleaned by "seeing" what He didn't do.
Jesus never hurried and never worried. His message and His life was quite the opposite. He modeled and then commissioned His followers to "Go preach this message: the Kingdom of Heaven is near. Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those with leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely give." Jesus seemed to live in the "eternal now".
As I think about the striving that causes conflict, I find that it comes from looking outside the eternal now...this is the moment we all have to do something good. Jesus was on a mission and a road that lead to Calvary, but He extracted every opportunity out of every moment to do good and speak truth.
I don't see that Jesus felt the need to touch every sick person or raise every dead person or cleanse every leper or deliver every demoniac of that day. He modeled what He commissions and empowers His Body of followers to do. We cannot take on the complete responsibility to do it all, but we must willing and ready to do our part.
We, as the Savior's servants (His hands, His feet, His mouth, His Spirit) are to be like Him in that regard. That sounds like a "tall order" and without the Holy Spirit it would be impossible for any of us to accomplish in our own strength.
The message to me in today's meeting with the One who gave that directive is "Slow your roll. Stop striving. Extract and squeeze out all there is in each opportunity I bring you".
With the pace of life accelerating and the end of all we know drawing near, His message brings sweet relief. Rather than telling us to sprint through each day to meet tomorrow's challenges ahead of Him, and some desperate time clock of doom, He wants us to work in the eternal moment. So, we can stop leaping over one sick person to find another, stop passing by one "dead person" to resurrect another, stop ignoring those He has right in front of us for the ones across the street or around the world...that we can't quite get to just yet.
****As a side note: Raising the dead can relate to a spiritual resurrection and not just a physical resurrection. When we share the gospel with the spiritually dead person and watch them resurrect into new life. That is the true miracle of the Gospel.
The Lord God of all Creation is Sovereign. He directs our steps and orders our days. He provides the precise Divine appointments for us that He has prepared at the foundation of the earth. His timetable for each one of us is eternity and His pace is slow.
I realize full well that if I am to Journey with my Jesus, and truly want to serve Him with a whole heart not just to win brownie points, but to do His will, I will need to slow my roll, take up His pace, and see to His interest in every situation that presents itself.
I need His help but then He has already made it available. So, I wonder what opportunity will come my way today?
The Holy Spirit is calling. Can you hear Him?
The Words of my Beloved are comforting, "I never sleep so you are safe." Psalm 121, "I lift my eyes up to the hills, where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord". That promise and fact is good in both the day and the nighttime hours.
"I, the Lord do not change so you, Oh descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed" Malachi 3:6
"The Lord is my helper so I will not be afraid", "I will never leave you nor forsake you", "Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever". Heb 13
The promises cascade out of a mental storehouse of God's Blessed Word, committed there to memory over the years of study. I am so thankful in these days for all the Lord has taught me over all the years. Whether it is my age or our close proximity to the Return of our King, the battle seems to be ratcheting up on earth.
For me, the mental assault comes in the form of conflict. Jeremiah spoke of it when he lapsed and asked the Lord from his human doubts, "will you be to me like a deceptive brook, a spring that fails?" (Jeremiah 15:18)
One of the most amazing things about the Sacred Romance with the King of Kings, is that we can be totally honest about our feelings and outspoken about our fears without any risk of retaliation from the One who holds our next breath and commands the winds of adversity to "stand down".
Even as I read all of the great promises, He has made available to those of us who love Him, when we doubt, it is permissible to speak and very appropriate to confer with our wise Counselor.
Today I am compelled to question the swirling conflict I feel around me and in me. There is such anxiety to the clock and calendar I live with. I feel like that White Rabbit who kept repeating, "I'm late, I'm late for a very important date".
"Beloved, you strive too much", was His gentle response. "My servants are pressured by self-expectations to do more than I am asking of them. Many are making themselves sick in the striving and need to be at rest".
Then He reminds me of my Lord's days upon the earth. His pace was slow, consistent with the society He was born into: no internet, no plane travel, no cell phones. Yet He came to show us the Father with a model that is still relevant today and a message that is meant for all mankind regardless of the world we entered at birth.
The weariness we feel, in part, has to do with all the knowledge we possess and have yet to gain. Processing all the input is more than a full-time job, one we were not originally wired for. I understand this from looking back to the day of the fall when the fruit from the forbidden tree was consumed.
There is always a reason for the forbidden by God, and it has to do with our best interests. The fruit from this tree represented a threat to humanity's peace and relationship with our Creator. The "knowledge of good and evil" is vexing to our human mind. We are simply not created (wired) to handle it all and mental conflict results.
Conflict in the human mind breaks down the human body. That is why the Gospel (Good News) is so critical to our health and well-being here and not just when we leave planet earth for our eternal destination.
As I think about the "Word" the Holy One is speaking, I am drawn back to the life of God (Jesus) wrapped in flesh. For all there is to understand and see in what He did, other great lessons can be gleaned by "seeing" what He didn't do.
Jesus never hurried and never worried. His message and His life was quite the opposite. He modeled and then commissioned His followers to "Go preach this message: the Kingdom of Heaven is near. Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those with leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely give." Jesus seemed to live in the "eternal now".
As I think about the striving that causes conflict, I find that it comes from looking outside the eternal now...this is the moment we all have to do something good. Jesus was on a mission and a road that lead to Calvary, but He extracted every opportunity out of every moment to do good and speak truth.
I don't see that Jesus felt the need to touch every sick person or raise every dead person or cleanse every leper or deliver every demoniac of that day. He modeled what He commissions and empowers His Body of followers to do. We cannot take on the complete responsibility to do it all, but we must willing and ready to do our part.
We, as the Savior's servants (His hands, His feet, His mouth, His Spirit) are to be like Him in that regard. That sounds like a "tall order" and without the Holy Spirit it would be impossible for any of us to accomplish in our own strength.
The message to me in today's meeting with the One who gave that directive is "Slow your roll. Stop striving. Extract and squeeze out all there is in each opportunity I bring you".
With the pace of life accelerating and the end of all we know drawing near, His message brings sweet relief. Rather than telling us to sprint through each day to meet tomorrow's challenges ahead of Him, and some desperate time clock of doom, He wants us to work in the eternal moment. So, we can stop leaping over one sick person to find another, stop passing by one "dead person" to resurrect another, stop ignoring those He has right in front of us for the ones across the street or around the world...that we can't quite get to just yet.
****As a side note: Raising the dead can relate to a spiritual resurrection and not just a physical resurrection. When we share the gospel with the spiritually dead person and watch them resurrect into new life. That is the true miracle of the Gospel.
The Lord God of all Creation is Sovereign. He directs our steps and orders our days. He provides the precise Divine appointments for us that He has prepared at the foundation of the earth. His timetable for each one of us is eternity and His pace is slow.
I realize full well that if I am to Journey with my Jesus, and truly want to serve Him with a whole heart not just to win brownie points, but to do His will, I will need to slow my roll, take up His pace, and see to His interest in every situation that presents itself.
I need His help but then He has already made it available. So, I wonder what opportunity will come my way today?
The Holy Spirit is calling. Can you hear Him?
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