Discontent With Whispers

Why are we so discontent with the whisperings of the Holy Spirit?

We long for the dreams and visions of ancient prophets and common man.

We long for the burning bushes and visitations from angels.

Foolishness!

We discredit the might, grace, and wisdom of God by longing for something that instilled fear and terror in the men of old.

We are blessed beyond reason and beyond imagination to have the very spirit of God living inside of our wretched souls.

Why should we need angels to give us guidance and dreams and visions when we have the creator of the universe giving us a part of Himself to show us the way!

We are selfish and ungrateful when we wish for something grander.

The only reason we think it would be grander is because we want what we can see. Not what we hear and feel.

We want the fire and brimstone and booming voice from heaven because then we would feel important!

The audacity that WE WOULD TRY AND USE A CONVERSATION WITH THE CREATOR OF EXISTENCE FOR OUR OWN GLORY!

Let us be humbled and prostrate before our God.

Let us be thankful and in awe.

We have no need for the methods of old for he has given us a gift that is beyond anything we can hope for.

We need to quiet our egos and shut our mouths and listen. For if we truly believed in the power of the Holy Spirit (who by the way is God) then how could we even consider wanting more in life?

Praise be to God, who provides us with more than we need.

Forgive us Father for when we ignore what is right in front of us: YOU.

Take Heart

I am attacked on all sides by the Enemy. He fills my head with memories of what I've done, things I've seen. They are burned into my soul. He reaches into my heart with a needle and injects shame and filth. The weight is too much to bear! The lies I've told, the friends I've hurt, the trash I've stared at, all crowding around me once more. But the Prince of Peace is my God! He has rescued me from my despair and pulled me out of my darkness! I am no longer a slave in the caverns of hell! I am a new man! A free man! I am a new creation.

I SAY THIS IN UTMOST CERTAINTY.

I will fall again and again but I am learning to give into grace. I say this not as an excuse but in joy! The times I fall into sin grace will increase! Does this mean I am free to sin? Absolutely not! But if I don't rest completely in Christ's sacrifice on the cross then I am a pointless man. 

TAKE HEART FRIENDS!

We are not given this gift of salvation just to get through the day! God has given us power and strength through the Holy Spirit. We can move mountains! Take heart brothers and sisters, for though we are scarred and the wounds are tender, we are being made whole again! We are being made new! 

WE ARE NEW! 

So tire not beloved, creation is waiting for us to become who God has ordained us to be. Fear not, for our Daddy has conquered doubt. He has conquered fear. He has conquered selfishness. He has conquered lust. He has conquered apathy. He has conquered emptiness. He has conquered immorality. He has conquered it all. 

AND HE HOLDS US IN HIS HANDS!

Love Notes

 Tonight I asked God to speak to me. I wanted that experience. That experience that some people go through when they hear, as if in the room with them, Him speak. I always hear of these experiences and become jealous. I believe in God and I believe that He is real and desperately wants me. All of me.

I always wondered why I have never had this “Vocal God” thing happen to me… I felt that maybe I had to do something drastic or that I needed to do something crazy to get God’s attention.

I always get really quiet and just plead with God to talk to me. I just open the door and invite him to speak. And deep down inside I am hoping for him to talk verbal and physical words to me…

Then it hit me.                      

God is ALWAYS talking to me. Maybe it’s not the verbal kind, like some people experience, but a different kind. Like the kind when you liked someone in middle school or high school and you leave them a note because you’re too nervous to openly confront them.

Those notes for me were always mushy because I found I could just write down or create a drawing of something that wouldn’t make me look like the bumbling idiot I am.

I LOOKED AT MY HAND.

I saw all the little creases and pores of my skin, each individual hair in its place. I heard the wind tossing the trees outside my apartment window. I saw the stars outside; the billions of galaxies that are out there. THAT IS GOD SPEAKING.

I’m not saying that God is nervous or a bumbling idiot so that he has to leave me “love notes” but that is how He does it. I look at the complexity and utter beauty of his creation and I hear him saying “THIS IS REAL. I AM REAL.”

Maybe God talks to me this way because He knows that if he revealed his “vocal voice” to me. Even the tiniest syllable; I would explode like the Nazis in The Raiders of the Lost Ark.

It’s quite absurd of me to ask God to speak to me, as if I’m daring him to prove his reality. He’s left behind all these love notes for me to find. Like it makes a girl or boy curious and excited about who wrote their note, I’ve found Creation makes me pursue Him more than if I just heard his voice and that was it… it’s beautiful. It’s beautiful because that reaffirms that HE WANTS ME TO PURSUE HIM CONSTANTLY!

And that is magical.

PRAYERS

I want to do something huge God.

Not for my own gain or satisfaction but for You.

I WANT TO LIVE AN EXTRAORDINARY LIFE GOD.

I don’t want to be content with a 9-5 job or a nice little routine.

I want to be places I want to be out there.

I want to go out and DECLARE your name forever!

I want to scream it from the rooftops Lord and I don’t want to do that in nice comfortable fashion.

Break me and shape me.

Take all my preconceptions of You and DESTROY THEM.

I WANT ALL OF YOU JUST LIKE YOU WANT ALL OF ME.

Amen..

"Only the Cover..."

Today I finished another read-through of C.S. Lewis' epic tale, "The Last Battle". This is the final chapter in "The Chronicles of Narnia" and documents the end of time and the final hardships experienced by the Narnians and the heroes of the stories. After the characters die and all that is good is swallowed up by evil,  the story really begins. The heroes and heroines of all the past stories find themselves alongside the great lion Aslan as he brings an end to the world they knew.

In a chilling and dazzling series of events He separates His true followers from the false ones and drowns the world in the sea. He calls the stars down from the sky and blots out the sun and moon and erases his former creation. The characters instantly find themselves in a different place: the "real Narnia", or the "real existence". It is paradise.

Lewis really strikes a cord with me when he describes the world(s) we live in as only a shadow of the real thing. It's beautiful really.

What we think of as good and perfect are ugly and flawed when compared to the real thing! God promises us in Isaiah 65:17 "Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind."

Lewis at the end of his book states that our life here, and all the stories that we live and all our pain and happiness is "only the cover and the title page." When we finally come into our perfect fellowship with Almighty God we will only be in chapter one of the Great Story! It will "go on forever, and every chapter will be better than the one before!"

IT. WILL. BE. GLORIOUS.