God

This morning we sang the amazing song by Glenn Pakiam – Everlasting God.

One thing I know that I have found
Through all the troubles that surround
You are the Rock that never fails,
You never fail

One thing I know that I believe
through every blessing I receive
You are the only One that stays, You always stay

Chorus

You never change, You’re still the same
You are the Everlasting God
You will remain after the day is gone and the things of earth have passed
everlasting God

Verse 3:
One thing I know that I have found
Through all the troubles that surround
You are the Rock that never fails, You never fail

Chorus
You never change, You’re still the same
You are the Everlasting God
You will remain after the day is gone and the things of earth have passed
everlasting God

And I was overwhelmed just thinking about who God is. All those qualities that I so flippantly say … creator, King of the universe, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent …

That God That God cares about me.

Just think about God … everything that He is … is available to each of us now

His hand is on us. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me.

This is where I learn to pray. When I begin to grasp who He is.

Wide Awake…Again Part 2

Hmm, then there was the whole vengeance thing that popped into my head with the whole “‘D’” is for dangerous” thoughts that I had during my sleepless night. (You’ve got to read the previous entry for this to make any sense at all.) But as I thought about what it means for God to be a dangerous God, I knew that his danger was directed at anything that separated his people from him. Sin does that and the enemy does that and life on earth does that so the dangerous God would unleash his anger and vengeance against anything that messes with his children.

I know and I cannot emphasize enough here that when I am talking about the vengeance of the LORD, I know that I do not “struggle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” Ephesians 6:12

But I really need God to make the wrong things right. To exercise his justice against the enemy. Justice for the poor, abused, aborted, poor, wounded, and on and on. Justice is a major of the theme of God’s heart. And a prevalent theme in scripture. That would make an interesting word study.

I’ve digressed again.

This morning I went to look up vengeance in response to my sleepless alphabetizing, and I found Isaiah 35 again. It is written out here in whole, because I am praying that it will minister to you the way that it has touched my heart this morning.

Be blessed today! God is for you…who can be against you in the face of a dangerous God.

Isaiah 35
1 The wilderness and the desert will be glad,
And the Arabah will rejoice and blossom;
Like the crocus
2 It will blossom profusely
And rejoice with rejoicing and shout of joy
The glory of Lebanon will be given to it,
The majesty of Carmel and Sharon
They will see the glory of the LORD,
The majesty of our God.
3 Encourage the exhausted, and strengthen the feeble.
4 Say to those with anxious heart,
“Take courage, fear not
Behold, your God will come with (J)vengeance;
The recompense of God will come,
But He will save you.”
5 Then the eyes of the blind will be opened
And the ears of the deaf will be unstopped.
6 Then the lame will leap like a deer,
And the tongue of the mute will shout for joy
For waters will break forth in the wilderness
And streams in the Arabah.
7 The scorched land will become a pool
And the thirsty ground springs of water;
In the haunt of jackals, its resting place,
Grass becomes reeds and rushes.
8 A highway will be there, a roadway,
And it will be called the Highway of Holiness
The unclean will not travel on it,
But it will be for him who walks that way,
And fools will not wander on it.
9 No lion will be there,
Nor will any vicious beast go up on it;
These will not be found there
But the redeemed will walk there,
10 And the ransomed of the LORD will return
And come with joyful shouting to Zion,
With everlasting joy upon their heads
They will find gladness and joy,
And (Z)sorrow and sighing will flee away.

Wide Awake…Again

Last night turned into alphabetical attributes of God night.

If you didn’t see my last blog about being awake in the middle of the night, I threw out there that when I can’t sleep, I “sing” myself through an alphabetical list of hymns. In the simple rules for my game, Amazing Grace cannot be used, because it is too easy.

When I do alphabetical attributes of God, the same type of rules apply. If you go through the alphabet more than once, there can be no repeats or “easy” attributes. “Easy” attributes like – awesome, beautiful and creative – don’t count.

My favorite last night was “D” = dangerous. How incredible that we can personally know the God who holds the whole universe together, can blot out life with a blink of his eye, who will exercise vengeance against his enemies. And yet THIS God will not allow my foot to slip, He never slumbers, He is the shade on my right hand, He will protect me from all evil, and guard my going out and coming in. There is no doubt. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me.

Spiritual Anorexics – Part 2

“Oh taste and see that the Lord is good.” Psalm 34:8

I find it interesting that when the body becomes dehydrated that feeling is often masked as hunger. And when we fast, that hunger’s edge goes away after awhile. The physical illustrates the spiritual.

When we don’t feast on the word, the feeling of hunger for the word goes away. I’ve found it so hard to get back into the discipline of regular times in the word, when I’ve gotten away from it. My sluggish, undernourished self drags back to regular quiet times like I’m off to a banquet of gruel. When what really awaits me is a banquet that meets every nutritional need of my heart.

Hunger also could be masked as something else. When I’m hungry, I have a choice – I could eat the things that are good for me, or I could rely on a Snickers and a Coke. So rather than go to the word itself, I could head off to books written by others, or cd’s and podcasts that are unlimited. (Sometimes I think we live in a Christian convenience store with delicious, but empty calories abounding.) Don’t get me wrong…these are all extremely valuable tools and drinking in the vast resources around us is a gift from God. Possibly to store us up for the famine to come. (Amos 8 ) But compared to eating the word itself, the nutritional benefit is markedly less.

The writer of Hebrews compares all this to milk and solid food. Milk having passed through the digestive system of another, and is fit for babies.

Hebrew 5:12-13 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant.

I don’t want to be a baby or a spiritual anorexic. I’m praying for divine hunger pains to drive me (and everyone I know) deeper and deeper into the Word of the LORD.

Jesus, give me a voracious appetite for your word.

Spiritual Anorexics

Amos 8:11-12

“Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord GOD,
“When I will send a famine on the land,
Not a famine for bread or a thirst for water,
But rather for hearing the words of the LORD.
12″People will stagger from sea to sea
And from the north even to the east;
They will go to and fro to seek the word of the LORD,
But they will not find it.

So if there is a day coming when there is a famine of the Word of the LORD, that must mean that prior to it, the Word of the LORD would be plentiful and readily available. Yep, that’s the present. Anyone can hop on web sites full of good teaching from the Word, there are books on the Word by the truck loads, and Bibles are NOT in short supply.

BUT if we are choosing not to feast on the Word. If we only hear the Word on Sundays when it is spoon fed to us, then we are like a person who chooses not to eat six days of every week. This type of refusal to eat would be a detriment to the body. In other words, this person is an anorexic person.

EAT NOW! Gain health! There is plenty, an abundance, a banquet table spread forth. Will you eat? Will you feed yourself?

Wide Awake

So this morning at about 3:40, I’m wide awake.

First I hope that it is just an interruption, so I tried to go back to sleep. Didn’t work.

Then I thought, the thief comes to steal. He’s trying to steal my sleep. So I sat up in bed and commanded him to be silent. Still wide awake.

So I finally asked God if there was something He wanted to talk about. Nothing came to mind, but it was just one of those times that you know the Father enjoys spending time with His kids.

So I reverted back to one of my old stand bys. An Alphabetical hymn/praise session. You know sing a hymn that starts with “A” – All Creatures of Our God and King. “B” – Be Thou My Vision. “C” – Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing. “D” – (Oh the) Deep, Deep Love of Jesus. “E” – Everlasting. “G” – God of Grace and God of Glory.

I hit the line in that last song that goes: God of Grace and God of Glory on your people pour your power, and I got goosebumps. Still got them as a matter of fact.

Jesus, we need your grace and your glory and your power. Cause it is all about you and your kingdom coming to this place and this time.

Must Read

I have located a must read on another blog.

Use the Blogroll on the right and click on Jeremy’s Complete Faith Blog. (Not reading it for the compliments, but the ability to say “Thank you, Jesus for adversity and affliction” relates exactly to what I was talking about earlier in the week about God hemming me in. This morning in prayer we talked about this too. One person talked about how much she appreciated the “crushings” in her life because of the way they brought her to God. It was a sweet time.

Jesus, teach me to thank you when life is hard. Teach me to pray when things get tough. Help me to learn quickly what you want to teach me.

Thanks for writing Jeremy; it is an honor to share the path with you.

Hem Me In

Psalm 139:5

“You hem me in – behind and before.” (New International Version)

“Thou hast enclosed me behind and before.” (New American Standard)

“Behind and before Thou hast beseiged me.” (Youngs Literal Translation)

“You have beset me and shut me in – behind and before.” (Amplified)

Psalm 139 seems to have the subtitle on it – “The Pro-LIFE” psalm. Here we read that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. That God has formed us in our mother’s wombs and his thoughts are more than we can number. But I’ve been mesmerized this month with verse five.

This picture of God hemming me in puts a couple of different images. First so many of the translations give that comforting warm hemming in where God wraps us in his blanket of love. I know these moments. The times when rest in the Father is easy and pleasant. (Psalm 16:6 “The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance.”)

But secondly, the image that sticks most in my mind is the image of being beseiged and beset. (definition of beset – to attack, assail and harass on all sides). The predominance of this picture may be from the “glass is half empty” personality I have, and while life is good right now, I think that perhaps He has given me this picture of my life last year.

God hems me in, in all circumstances: pleasant and uncomfortable. When it is uncomfortable, do I keep throwing myself against the thorns in the hedge or should I sit still in the center of this area and wait quietly? My history is of flailing around the hedge in a panic. Not knowing that the hedge is placed there by God, himself, I don’t do myself any favors by resisting the hedge.

No matter whether it is comfortable hemming in or beseiging, I am supposed to sit still in the hedge, because the second half of the verse and verse six all say, “you have laid your hand upon me; such knowledge is too wonderful for me.” I really want the touch of my Creator, Savior, Comforter, Counselor, Friend, Coming King, Lover of My Soul. The closeness and intimacy with Him keeps my lamp burning with the oil of intimacy.

Jesus, teach me to sit still under your hand whether my circumstances are comfortable or not. I need the wonderful knowledge of your hand on me, moment by moment.

Glass is half empty side of me talking now – sure hope verbalizing all this doesn’t mean that I’m about to be hedged in by problems and the LORD is about to give me a chance to practice what I write. But since I’m not optimistic by nature…pray for me that I’ve learned this lesson.

Mailbox

Frequently my inbox hosts questions from various people about prayer and related topics. One of my thoughts with this blog was to post the questions and my answers for your digestion and input. I’m pretty committed to keeping things anonymous so that everybody feels comfortable.

Here’s a question I got this weekend.

Kristen, I had the strangest thing happen this evening, around 7:30 or 8 pm. I was going around, being my happy little usual self, I was suddenly overcome by a wave of grief-SO STRONG I just stood there and criedand it came out of the blue. I wept about mothers during the Holocaust, who had to CHOOSE, between their children-like in the movie Sophie’s Choice. How that experience changed their lives forever, and how some were probably still alive, having to live with that choice. I began to pray for them, and it led me to pray for all the pregnant mothers who CHOOSE to abort their babies, how they are making a choice they don’t understand and they will have to live with that the rest of their lives! It’s like I carried their grief for but a moment and couldn’t take it. I was burdened to tell these moms about the ramifications of their choice. This happened right after my friend told me this week’s messages were about abortion. The scripture I found for comfort was Psalm 33:12-15 Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD, the people he chose for his inheritance. From heaven the LORD looks down and sees all mankind; from his dwelling place he watches all who live on earth-he who forms the hearts of all, who considers everything they do.

Here’s my response:

I would suspect that what happened to you on Saturday night was a moment of the Holy Spirit showing you the heart of God on the matter. Sometimes we get just a glimpse of the bigger picture and a better understanding of how God really feels about the situation. His burden for the babies and moms is huge and we just toddle through life oblivious to how big a deal it really is. The fleeting quality of what you experienced reinforces to me how huge God’s burden is and how inadequet we are as people to carry his burdens. He remembers that we are dust.

Sometimes it is very similar to a “spirit of travail” when the burden to a pray comes on and we carry something through to a birth. This happens me and sometimes I know what it is for and sometimes I don’t. For example, I woke up one night weeping and I knew that there was a young girl in danger. My perception was that it seemed to be Africa, she was hiding under something like a leaf, and there were people looking for her. I cried and prayed and cried and prayed and suddenly knew that everything was ok and immediately fell back to sleep. Sometimes I have no idea what I am praying for. This has happened several times and most frequently during a worship service. I just start crying – hard and making a snotty but quiet scene. There is this sense of overwhelming grief and I cry and cry and cry, and suddenly it will be over, and I feel released. So perhaps it is warfare over what ever is going on in the service and I get released from it when I’m done.

Anyway, my advice is go with it. You never know what God is doing with your willingness to serve him. Whether it would be to feel the pain he feels, or to war something through.