There are many thoughts swirling within my heart and mind this evening... awaking from a dream and the Father's voice I was brought into a very awake place and as the night as moved forward and His presence has lingered I found myself settling into the very comfortable familiar hug like aspect of my Father....... This place where warmth and peace and the most sincere of affections reside.....
Within that place I found a depth of gratitude this evening for the desert and the wilderness... for the dark nights of the soul and valleys...... I caught a glimpse of the daughter I have become because of them and for that my gratitude soared......
He who began a good work really does carry it forth.... In Him it began and in Him it will end... He gives the grace and the strength and the tender loving kindnesses.... I supply the "yes" and the "I will"......
through this journey tonight I have been touched by a depth of peace and rest that if I just simply walk as His and give Him my heart and allow Him the access He longs for then He brings about the sweetest of fragrances and the most beautiful of images... and my life becomes something I wouldn't have even known to ask for....
But that ... that part of the night is where I just lay simply before Him.... basking in His love ...... warm and secure within His embrace.... that part of the evening kept me settled... then picture after picture was brought before me as if He was sharing with me a photo album of what was on His heart and I was stirred...
I saw pictures of hallways with paintings upon them .... and I felt a sadness upon the heart of my Father.... they were portraits of the gifts and the callings of man given by God... and they were on display .... words floating in the air... I like this one.. I don't like this one... I can use this one... I am this one..... oh if I had this one.... the power of God put on display by those who would use it for their own glory or their own benefit..... the gifts and callings of God that are meant to build up the body and bring forth the Kingdom bringing forth destruction and pain because of selfish ambition and vain conceit..... bringing forth jealousy and envy and strife........
Identity is a tricky thing .... in the first part of the evening I lay in the affections of my Father's embrace as His daughter feeling the presence and the power of my Father's Kingdom and knowing that it was and is all mine..... I am His .. He is mine... we are that we are........ I don't pull upon Him I lay my affections at His feet..... I ask at times and I seek at times and I knock at times but I dwell constantly..... Through the valleys, the dark nights, the wilderness I asked one thing..... don't let it end until the work is done.... Don't let this sifting of me end until I can stand as Yours and Yours alone... until the flow of You through me would be just that and I wouldn't taint it and I wouldn't try to possess it... That I would acknowledge that it is all Yours and You have given it to me but as You would will not as I would use......
That is where my gratitude abounds.. not saying that it is fully been done but so amazed that He took my heart that so hungered for acceptance.. so used the gifts within me to get it... so found identity in what I did rather than in who I am... and transformed the heart of a slave into the heart of a daughter... whose greatest delight is to see Him.. and love Him.. and become more and more like Him.... walking this earth with Him until the time when I will walk my eternal home with Him and loving Him through all the different terrains.....
Then there was this last thing..... and I know as I write this sleep will come when this is out of me.... I am sorry..... I am sorry first to the Father... for when I used His gifts attempting some tower and it was more about selfish gain than the betterment of the Body of Christ......
But I am sorry to the leaders I have served under and the people I have supposedly served... I did not serve you well.... It was more about me than it was about you..... I wanted a place for my gifts and talents to be on display and I took more than I gave... at times I saw you as nothing more than an avenue for which to sell my petty wares..... and I did not see you as a man or a woman... as a brother or a sister as one so loved and cherished by our Father....
I am so very deeply saddened ... I performed for you at best and while I know that the Father in all of His graciousness and provision and love ministered despite me I long for something so different..... and I am sorry that that hunger didn't exist before and that instead I was hungry for a place at whatever the cost.........
I am coming to an understanding of how resting in Him is the most important aspect to the advancement of the Kingdom of God..... the battle is not ours.. never has been..... whatever avenue... whatever gifting... whatever strength.... they are nothing compared to the sons and the daughters of God knowing their Father and walking in that knowledge and His affections...... and all my previous scrambling would have never brought me to this place of sight or understanding.... only rest has... only resting in Him as shown me that it is not by might nor by power but by His Spirit.............
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