- I get to the place where I need to process all the "that's" the Lord is bringing up and yes, even for me there is a place where the journey goes deep and personal and it is JUST He and I.
- Practical note... When you have one son in college and 5 others getting ready for school amidst a schedule that already has football practices here and dance classes there, there are days that while thoughts swim in my head, my fingers don't get to dance upon the keys.
- YOU!
What do I mean by that?
Well, my blog is small and I'm really ok with that.
I'm not used to emails and comments and lots of feedback.
But some of the last postings must of hit a cord.
So I was responding to emails and trying to process the reality of the comments and pray!
I know I am on a new journey. I know that this journey is something that the Lord has placed me within. So much about me is changing. So much about the way I think, the way I want to think, the way I operate... so much change in and around me. It can be a bit overwhelming at times and so I wanted to pull back on the reins a little bit.
I wanted to make sure that I wasn't chasing something that the Lord wasn't doing. I wanted to pause... (Selah..) and meditate and seek God and really hear from Him and count the cost that it takes to walk so openly. SO YOU! I paused because YOU matter more than anything I write and I would never want to use emotions or words to manipulate or conjure up an experience or emotions.
I don't follow hype. And if there is momentum, I actually make sure it pauses before it goes full throttle... I think that there is a godly principal in that. To check and recheck that it is indeed the Lord that is building the house... I've labored in vain too many times, I don't want that to, by the grace of God, ever be my life... ever again...
BUT I'M Back....................................
This morning all the kids went back to school...
There were so many thoughts upon my heart and mind. So I just settled in .. The pause thing with the Lord is so satisfying. It renders me to a place where it isn't about me, my thoughts, my life and it becomes about Him.... What is He saying? What is my Father doing? I am His... He is for me..... I walked my youngest son to the bus stop this morning... With the shadows of the Fall we played.... I realized at one point Gregory was walking in my shadow and I just smiled and glanced up... I am walking in His shadow, my Father's shadow, the shadow of the Lord Most High, at all times...
So I drove to a favorite local location.. got coffee and sat in a corner most table... And didn't go for my laptop first... I am a pen and paper kind of girl and when my thoughts are all swirling and dancing and creating one of those carnival type swirled paint pictures I leave the keys and turn to journal and pen..........
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But as I reached for the pen, a calm and peace and the truest reality heightened the fact that He is always with us....
He was with me before those moments... AND He is with me outside of those moments where He draws my attentions to Himself in heightened ways...
BUT OH HOW.. HOW, I LOVE THOSE HEIGHTENED WAYS!!
I had been processing the move, the transitions, life..... This morning as I drove away from the preschool with all the children now, officially, at all their schools, I remembered the preschool in Fort Mill. I remembered the preschool in Fort Mill, I remembered Nation Ford High School, I thought of Clemson, I thought of Fort Mill Middle School, I thought of the past year... I thought of the events that had surrounded our life... I thought about the move, I thought about the word, "disorientation," I thought about concepts such as hope, kindness, friendship, communication.. I thought about how I picture things versus the reality of the ways things play out, I thought and I thought.....
And then His voice... that still small voice that when it speaks it COMMANDS an army! That still small voice that calls all things into being... That still small voice that reverberates throughout creation and changes all things... HIM! His still small voice!
All He said at first was, "Surviving Ministry..." And I thought I knew what He meant... And all too quickly realized I didn't....
The first pastor I served at came back from attending a pastor's conference and laughed about how the theme song among the attendees was based around the song, "I'll do anything for love.. but I won't do that." That mentality set a course that has been a long time washing off... Sadly, I have seen variations of that that are a ton times worse.
Today.. as I heard the words, "Surviving Ministry," and as thoughts danced and swirled ... I saw Christ... I saw Jesus and I heard the beating of His heart... and this my friends.. this is the reality of the Kingdom...
We don't survive ministry... Jesus didn't survive the earthly ministry His Father asked of Him.. not really.. He followed out His course unto death....
A friend posted this scripture on Facebook today...
Father, I desire that they whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold [see and experience] My glory which You have given Me… (Jn 17:24)
We don't survive ministry... Maybe we don't even "survive" each other...
- No greater love than this that we lay our lives down for a friend
- Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it but whoever loses his life will find it
- Walking the extra and then the extra and then the extra mile
- There is no "I'll do anything for love.. But I won't do that," when following Jesus and calling Him, Lord.
- Jesus LOVED .. .let me say that again, JESUS LOVED and LOVES the people.. all the people; the children, the women, the lost, the down trodden, the rich, the poor, the religious, the lost... He loves them all.. He loves us all
- We all need friends who will tear open roofs for us....
WE AREN'T CALLED TO SURVIVE "MINISTRY,"
We are called to be crucified with Christ and to no longer live....
We are called to not speak of our own and not act on our own but to look to Him and see as He sees...
Trusted are the wounds of a friend
We are called to death.. not to survival... We are called to crucifixion not to survival... We are called to resurrection.. not to survival.... We are called to life.... not to survival....
Surviving Ministry.. what interesting two words the Father used to begin our conversation this morning... birthed the realization.. I'm not called nor was I created for survival.... It isn't survival of the fittest.... It is who will inherit the earth?
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