Saturday, March 29, 2014

Email inboxes full of prophetic utterances while hearts starve... Be fed

Thinking upon His presence and reading the book which captured my heart over twenty years ago. Practicing the Presence of God, by Brother Lawrence was one of the first books I ever read as a Christian. It would set my affections. It would set my course. It would produce an intrigue in me that even when left for a period of time, would always resume.

Maybe it is now, after two decades of seeing other things as it pertains to the ministry of the Lord upon the earth, that I can once again revisit but stand even more assured.

Maybe that is it....

I do.. I stand more assured that a people who are willing to wait upon the presence of the Lord will enter into living the best life a human being can live. I'm not talking monastery here, I am talking an invitation for the presence of the Lord to join you within each minute, and within each activity … To do all, as Brother Lawrence speaks of, for the love of God...


Today I have thought about Ananias and Sapphira, and I have thought about Uzzah. Then I have thought about Moses, David, Obed Edom, Enoch, and all of those who walked with and in the presence of the Lord. I have thought about the victory of Jericho and then the defeat of Ai. I have thought about the declaration of the foreign nations over Israel that there God was THE God of all Heaven and earth.

When I turn my appetites, affections, desires, hopes and dreams over to Him and in their place purpose within my heart just to pursue His presence, all else falls into a most right perspective. I don't desire lazy inactivity as it pertains to the concept and powerful reality of “resting” before our God. One can be in the most active physical state and be in “rest” with God.

To commune with Him as one shops, as one baths a child, as one prepares a meal... to be with Him and live with Him and trust Him in all activity. To acknowledge that but He builds a house, a life, a church, whatever.. unless He builds it.. we all walk in vanity.

There is no methodology truly to be followed... It is the age old invitation to abide that Jesus spoke of when teaching about vines and branches.

What do we place our confidence in? A board room full of the most successful church planters of our day, or a granny who has sat for years and prayed. The army of Israel was rendered of no effect in regards to a giant and yet a shepherd boy would win that battle...

The hunger and desire for words of revelation to be spoken fill our air ways and our email inboxes. There is no word that is written or gotten publicly that if it was relevant to you that God, Himself wouldn't speak it directly to you, if you waited upon Him to hear His heart. It is the drive through, short cut mentality that bottom feeds upon anything other... an utterance should be a reverberation of what in your gut you would already know if you allowed yourself to believe. Moses invited the people into the deep darknesses, to enter into a relationship with the Lord. They declined and he went and the people fell into idolatry.

There is no difference today.. leaders who like their station and people who want the easy revelation.. But my dear friends how much more we lose when upon Him we do not wait and go to directly...

I will harp upon these tunes and stand upon this note... Seek the Lord while He may be found.... Seek Him and abide in Him, rest in Him, and wait upon Him... and you will arise with renewed strength, hope and beauty...


Invite the Lord into your moments, and into all your activities and watch as He transforms your life.. partner with Him, reach out and hold His hand.. He will direct your path!

We go to the moon......

When I first walked with Him there were two realities that blew me away...

Immediately I was affected by the times when Jesus would say things that included, “I tell you the truth.” For one who had been so lied to and for one who had spent so much of her life lying, those words fell upon me like the dews of the first spring rains. I was so awe struck that there was One who proclaimed something such as that, “I tell you the truth....” but that it landed upon the soul as truth. That it landed upon the soul as truth affected me and rattled through me and brought dry bones to life for the first time.

The other statement wouldn't bring as much relief, it would bring a hunger. The other statement that I would read and re-read and read again, the other statement that I would trace my fingers over and yearn to touch the reality of, was when all the times from Leviticus to Jeremiah to Exodus and all the places throughout the Scriptures, the Lord, Himself, would speak, and say something to the affect of, “I will be there God and they will be my people.”

He tells the truth and I will belong to Him.

I could say no more.

That last statement would begin a pursuit of mine that has found it's course throughout the last two decades as I have walked with Christ. Sometimes more passionately then others but it has always lingered.

It has and is and will always be about His presence...

If I pursue nothing else my entire life but Him and His presence, I will have led a good life when I someday breath my last breath. Heck, I will have led a great life....

I get lost in the mystics of old and not so old.. their traditions, their instructions, their realities of knowing the sweet presence of Him, who says to us, I am Yours and be Mine.... Be my person.

For me I the bible characters I most think about these days are the Obed Edoms; those that knew that the presence of the Lord brought something to their lives that without it, they were left vacant...

Frank Laubach, puts this challenge out there about finding God in every minute. Some of his diary writings have been published alongside Brother Lawrence's, Practicing the Presence of God. After 20 years I finally allowed myself to purchase a new copy of that book, my had become tattered and old. Laubach states, that any individual who walks the way of attempting to find God in every minute for a month, will find their lives so thoroughly changed.

Couple the search and pursuit of His presence alongside the reality that He speaks of that which He longs to do, where He says; He goes before us, He makes a way, He conquers, He wins the victory and you have got a life worth living... It does not give permission for laziness nor attitudes of neglect BUT it speaks that if we wait, if we linger, if we pause, if we watch and look and partner with Him, we will live a most magnificent life. The magnificence IS NOT found in the action but in the reclining into Him. So one can say it is a magnificent life if one is leading armies or if one is being sawn in half. (Hebrews 11)

I lived a life without it and I will never forget first meeting Him, while I have not walked faithfully throughout the length of our times together, He has never missed a beat.

A story and then we can end....

When Jim and I lived in NJ, we owned this home. It was a time in His presence and a birthing of some of His ways into our life that was astounding. Our living room would so fill with the presence of God that if you were sitting on opposite sides of the room, you could not see one another. If Jim was on one sofa and I was on the other, the atmosphere was so filled with His presence that the cloud in the room would not permit us to see the other.

When we went to sell the house, there was this one couple. They already knew the house wasn't for them but as they made their way back to that living room they stopped. They stopped and stood there and for hours talked to Jim and I. They just did not want to leave that room. They still knew the house wasn't for them, but they were drawn and glued.

Touch the blanket of His presence and your life will never be the same.

We have seen the strength and might of men and women, I have watched and participated in the building of towers and in vanity construction of houses that the Lord was not building. Now I say alongside those who have gone before me, that but He goes with us we will not venture from point A.

There is no magic button, no conference you can attend or cd set you can listen to, there is no 5 step program nor is there a path that says anything to the way of, “try this and you too can have the perfect relationship with God in just two weeks.” Living with Him and abiding in His presence will look as individual as each person.

And I'll go even one step further into this.. it won't be easy. It will be hard. Anyone who sells you a christianity that promises only the glitter and glamour, is selling you the Brooklyn Bridge. Pursuing His presence above all else will require everything, but as He spoke, in losing your life you will find a life you never even dreamed possible of living.


I can not be your sweet little blogger who whispers poetic intrigue into your ears, I can tell you there is a very narrow path and it seems absolutely foolish to any who merely look at it... But put even one toe upon it and the smile will cross your face and a joy will enter your heart and your life will never be the same... He is our God and He calls us to be His people... NO greater statement was ever spoken...

John F Kennedy once said, 

“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things. Not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”


I choose to pursue and pursue and pursue His presence. I choose to rest and to wait upon Him. I choose Him against ever false house built with vanity, I choose Him over every method and thought about how to successfully do this or that in His Kingdom.. not because it is easy but because it is the right thing to do.. it is hard and it will challenge every fabric of my being but I would rather walk with the 300 of Gideon's army then with a crowd of 32,000.


Wednesday, March 26, 2014

What 3 - 6 hours will NEVER GIVE you... Give up the sound bite...

There was this time many years ago that the Lord wouldn't speak to me for six months...

Here is the story.......


I had been spending time fasting and praying. Long seasons of fasting and seeking the Lord. It was a time of much transition and what I didn't know back then was the foundation was being laid for what the next large season of my life would become.

The Lord had been speaking to me and it was tender and real. Those times of sweetness between He and I. Hours and even days would pass as mere seconds. There was much He was speaking about in regards to fasting. There was much He was speaking about in regards to the love that flwoed between Him and His people, between Him and I.

I was reading the ancients. I was devouring books by Madame Guyon, Theresa of Avila, Brother Lawrence and so on... It was about Him, His presence, the reality of His nature and the immense capacity He has to pursue and love.

There were leaders in the Body of Christ who were teaching upon these subjects and I wanted to learn all I could, in so desiring I purchased a tape set. Yes, that ages me.. I understand.

The moment they arrived I felt like I was holding gold in my hands... I couldn't wait to listen.

Then the Lord spoke, “Don't!”

“There isn't anything within those that I haven't spoken to you already.”

I'd love to say I had the confidence to obey.. I did not...
Not believing... not trusting... I listened...

After I was done .. I realized that there hadn't been anything within the series that the Father hadn't spoken to me... NOW PLEASE.. hear my heart.. I have had teachers and leaders in my life.. I HAVE teachers and leaders in my life.... Men and women who instruct me and help me and walk with me and who I walk with... This isn't a posting to legitimize those who would throw out the Body and it's voice.


So what is this posting...

That tape series was 8 hours long. It took 8 hours to listen to.... But the lessons the Lord had taught me that were as those teachings had taken months.. Honestly, even years of preparation and foundation laying. It had taken intimate hours spent withdrawn away unto Him. It had taken time in fasting and time in quiet and solitude and … AND .. it had just taken time....

Beautiful time...
Not just 8 hours... but a life time of pursuit and of being pursued... Of choosing Him above other things.. It wasn't that there weren't things to be gleaned from another's teaching but the richness that had caused that leader to be empowered to teach.. the hours and life style and life time he spent with the Lord that had granted him that revelation was the same lifestyle the Lord had wooed me into.

Back to my story...

When the last tape had played the last minute of teaching and prayers had been prayed and the button had been pushed to turn it off, the Father's voice was clear, there would be a time where that sweet instruction would not come forth from Him. I had chosen men and He would not instruct me in the same way for six months. Hear me.. He spoke to me as my God and my Father and the Lover of my soul.. He did NOT forsake me nor did He abandon me.. But He did show me the difference...

Why?

Because you CAN NEVER GET in 6-8 hours of teaching what you will get from personally sitting at His feet... Another man or woman CAN NOT give you the depth of inner satisfaction as can the Holy Spirit...

Instruction... yes
Inspiration... yes

But it won't be the same... Iron sharpens iron and we need to be in relationship with one another BUT the fullness comes from Him...

In this time and age we want the quick 30 second sound bite and yet we want to walk in the depths of the Spirit and His anointing.. There has never been a more dangerous combination.. Without the foundations of affection from Him and for Him you WILL NEVER stand in the days of pouring out of His spirit.. What you spend your hours upon matters...


This perpetual hurry of business and company ruins me in soul if not in body. More solitude and earlier hours!” 
― William Wilberforce

This.. this is what it looks like... this is the beauty and affection we can have with God...


Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Loading a pistol with paint and firing at the canvas....................

“Loading a pistol with paint and firing at the canvas....” That was a critique of men with the names of Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, and Dega. It was not complimentary. Impressionism wasn't what the Salon of Paris was looking for... Malcom Gladwell writes brilliantly concerning what these men did in reaction to their rejection.

I laughed as I looked at the titles upon my bed and thought about the audio book I had been playing. Yet the ideas from all these writers and thinkers swirled within my head...

Malcolm Gladwell's David and Goliath: Underdogs, misfits, and the art of battling giants, right alongside Brother Lawrence's Practicing the Presence of God with diary pages from the works of Frank Laubach, and The Holy Longing by Ronald Rolheiser.

Couple all of that with two weeks of laying in bed in pain alongside many a season of change, turbulence and transition.

The words I have been able to write upon paper:

Rest
Wait
Trust
Presence
Provision
Solitude
Restoration
(I've written other words as well these are the most appropriate to share.. insert smiley face.)

People I have thought about:

Adam and Eve
Enoch
Obed Edom
Moses
Elijah
Noah
The men and women of Acts


Questions I have asked:

What does it look like to live a life embedded in His presence?
What does that look like? And what does it mean to trust in God's presence?
How seriously do we take the need of the presence of God?


Realities I have thought about:

He uses the weak things of the world to confound the wise
There was nothing in Him that we would be drawn to Him
He was a man of sorrows, rejected and we did not esteem Him...

I have pitted the thoughts of Gladwell with the mystics of old and my own heart's hungers.

I have thought about how God whittled down Gideon's army until it was only 300 hundred men.

What would we say to a pastor who had a congregation of 22,000 who then lost more than half and was down to 10,000 and then down to 300?

Most likely the celebrity pastors of the day would be fired by their boards. Assumed to have lost the “annointing” upon their lives. Or whatever say you.

Is the man with 22,000 more successful... Read from Judges and you decide...

The Lord said to Gideon, “The people who are with you are too many for Me to give Midian into their hands, for Israel would become boastful, saying, ‘My own power has delivered me.’ Now therefore come, proclaim in the hearing of the people, saying, ‘Whoever is afraid and trembling, let him return and depart from Mount Gilead.’” So 22,000 people returned, but 10,000 remained.
Then the Lord said to Gideon, “The people are still too many; bring them down to the water and I will test them for you there. Therefore it shall be that he of whom I say to you, ‘This one shall go with you,’ he shall go with you; but everyone of whom I say to you, ‘This one shall not go with you,’ he shall not go.” So he brought the people down to the water. And the Lord said to Gideon, “You shall separate everyone who laps the water with his tongue as a dog laps, as well as everyone who kneels to drink.” Now the number of those who lapped, putting their hand to their mouth, was 300 men; but all the rest of the people kneeled to drink water. The Lord said to Gideon, “I will deliver you with the 300 men who lapped and will give the Midianites into your hands; so let all the other people go, each man to his home.” So the 300 men took the people’s provisions and their trumpets into their hands. And Gideon sent all the other men of Israel, each to his tent, but retained the 300 men; and the camp of Midian was below him in the valley.


It is read time and time again in scriptures.. Not by might nor by power but by my Spirit says the Lord...

In his preface, Ronald Rolheiser writes in The Holy Longing, “And many good, sincere persons struggle today with their faith and with their churches. Lots of things contribute to this: the pluralism of an age which is rich in everything, except clarity; the individualism of a culture which makes family and community life difficult at every level; an anti-church sentiment within both popular culture and the intellectual world; an ever growing antagonism between those who see religion in terms of private prayer and piety and those who see it as the quest for justice; and a SEEMING TIREDNESS RIGHT WITHIN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCHES THEMSELVES.”

This hodge podge of writing today is a swirling of thoughts...

"Tiredness," there is down right exhaustion.  A flurry of activity as I have likened more unto the prophets of baal then the works of God.. All to be bigger.. better... more powerful... and yet lacking real power....  10,000 teachers not many mothers and fathers...  Who will the people say today of that they are not like our scribes/our teachers.. Where is the one who speaks with authority born forth from Heaven? Who is willing to wait upon Him to have strength renewed? Or just simply wait upon Him and experience Him and then not blast it upon Facebook but cherish it as the intimate moments it was?


But the thought and the reality of the need to be a people of His presence and that only by waiting upon Him and separating ourselves out (as God separated out Gideon's army) from the methodologies of modern mechanics of ministry will we find a people rested within the arms of the Lord willing for the victories to all be His. When we will lean on Him instead of the wisdom of men and this age, we will see as we were made to see..... 


Sunday, March 2, 2014

From Masquerade to Magnified... 20 years in the making.. 20 years to only confirm what I had already believed

I grew up loving musical theater.

I was so very fortunate to have parents who had means and similar passion. I sat in many a Broadway theater. I watched many a star sing and dance and entertain.

This morning the lyrics to Masquerade from Phantom of the Opera, played within my memories. The words to it. The reality of it. The masks we all wear. The reality we all try to hide. The way we morph ourselves.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwoLNtUuCVk


 I had been spending some time in prayer and started weeping. After my remembrances would be turned towards Broadway, they would then be fixed upon an old vineyard song that has found its way into my life within many a season.

Fred Hammond's song, Be Magnified, crossed its way through my lips and is what left me in tears upon my bed. Reaching out towards the Lord as words of intercession mixed with the words of the song, I began to weep. How many times had I lifted my voice with these words and come back to the place where it is not upon men and the ways of men and modern ministry that the Kingdom of God flourishes.

Be Magnified..... 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpPTjHpIIOw

I come back time and time again to the scenes of Jesus cleansing the temple, of Jesus chastising the Pharisees, of our Father yearning to be our God and King and not share that place with another. His desire that we would walk in patience, walk in trust, walk in humility. His hunger that we would believe He has the very best for us in mind. That I would not lift my heart, soul, hand to any other idol.. any other god. That I would not believe in the mechanisms and tactics of the day over the power of the Holy Spirit.

I do not desire to throw the baby out with the bathwater...
I will grant that the Lord gives men strategies to advance His purposes upon the earth..

But I will say this....

His strategies are utterly delightful..
His strategies are stunning and brilliant and other worldly
His strategies DO NOT come formulated within lists of 5 ways for that and 10 ways for this..
His strategies speak of worship bringing walls down.
His strategies pit 300 Gideon warriors against nation.
His strategies are formed by 120 people waiting in upper room before 1000s are added to their number
His strategies aren't formulaic
His strategies contain within their make up that which fascinates me and that which I desire to know and that which I crave the courage to wait for and to walk within.
His strategies …

I believe in the power of the Holy Spirit .. not just to give charismatics and Pentecostals an evening out or an event within a conference.. I believe in the reality that the presence of God truly affects all things. I believe that Obed Edom was blessed when presence of the Lord was within His household. I believe that the spirit caused fetuses within the womb's of our Lord's mother's cousin to leap. I believe it was the Spirit and the reality of our Father and our Kingdom of Heaven that went before His people time and time and time again....

I understand that old story told about a man and a flood and a boat being sent, a helicopter being sent.. etc... etc... etc... It isn't that I don't believe that the Lord uses all things. The Earth is the Lord's and all that is within.... Too many times however from where I have stood and from what I have seen the men aren't waiting for the boat or the helicopter.... they are building them in their own likenesses and in their own ways...

I must say that for where I find myself in life and in faith and after decades of ministry, my stance must be one that I would rather wait upon the Lord then build in vanity. Unless the Lord builds the house we labor in vain. There is much vanity. There are many tables that would once again be over turned by our Lord walking within our temples. The schemes and strategies of men are so small regardless of what they achieve. It is said we gain the whole world and yet lose our souls. It is written that there will be upon that grand day the sorrowful confession of those that worked within the house of the Lord doing the “works” of God and yet never stopping to be known by Him nor truly know Him.

That truth... Those written words should be the impetus that bring us to our knees and compel us to remove the masks and cease the masquerade...

I have made Him way too small in my eyes....
Oh dearest Lord

Please … Please forgive me


I have made You too small in my eyes
Oh Lord, forgive me
And I have believed in a lie
That You are unable to help me.
But now, Oh Lord, I see my wrong
Heal my heart and show Yourself strong
And in my eyes and with my song
Oh Lord, be magnified 

Chorus:
Be magnified, Oh Lord
You are highly exalted
And there is nothing You can't do
Oh Lord, my eyes are on You
Be magnified,
Oh Lord, be magnified

Verse 2
I have leaned on a wisdom of men
Oh Lord, forgive me
And I have responded to them
Instead of Your light and Your mercy
But now, Oh Lord, I see my wrong
Heal my heart and show yourself strong
And in my eyes and in my song
Oh Lord be magnified