I am notorious for letting my car run so very close to empty. Just ask my oldest son who has had to rescue me on more than one occasion. It drives my children crazy how close to empty I will drive. I knew our car, the Kia, that we had up until a month ago. I knew that car so very well. I knew how far I could push it and I would often push it to the brink of its capacity. Now this wasn't done out of stupidity but out of busy. HHHhhhmmm, ok maybe in second thought that is stupidity. Hindsight is always 20/20.
I would see where that infamous red line was and think, "oh I can do just one more thing," or "I don't have to stop to tonight; I'm too cold, too tired, couldn't be bothered, just want to get home, to the store, to the meeting, etc etc etc...." And so it goes on and on. At times I would end up stranded, and yet, at other times, I would just end up preoccupied. Thinking too much, and being in a nervous state of just how low my tank was and would I be able to get to whatever destination. Would I be able to get to where I needed to be? Those thoughts would fill my head, instead of just taking the time, pulling into a gas station and filling up. HHHhhmmm
I am a BIG believer in what realities present themselve in the natural, are OH SO INDICATIVE of those in the spirit... And that is how I was living my life...
As I have said before, it was once spoken to me that if I would be vulnerable and transparent that healing would come to others. I mastered a cultured vulnerability. Oh don't even pretend to not understand what it is I am saying. Our individualistic, pluralistic modern day society feeds at the troughs of feigned or measured out vulnerability.
It's the hip new thing... BE VULNERABLE... People love that stuff; reality tv, reality church, reality life.. let people in.. Except people HONESTLY don't want to see the dark stuff, the places where you really struggle.. Be vulnerable but calculating and that, my friends.. is such a horrific and lonely place that only is going to be ending up in death...
Now I am not saying bare it all.. But when praise is attributed to you for being vulnerable and yet you know how much others don't know, YOU FEEL LIKE A FRAUD... AND in some ways you ARE.... Playing the part of the 21st century court jester in the pulpits and in life...
I know masters of it and have been one myself. You know, those who give you so much from the pulpits, the blogs, the articles, etc etc etc and yet you truly don't know them. They have decided what to let you into and so did I, walking with culture but being nothing more than a white washed tomb. Looking gorgeous and culturally relevant on the outside but perishing on the inside.
I know many exhausted people. There is a tangible exhaustion in the spirit and yet a feverish push to keeping the mechanisms of ministry going.
In one of my last blog posts, I quoted Bill Johnson.. I will do it again:
"One of the side effects of losing intimacy with God is that at some point we stop doing ministry out of imagination and we begin doing it out of memory."
I also shared the picture of the empty clay jar with the black scum on the bottom of it, and how the Lord expressed to me that that was what I was pulling forth from. It is no different than my car, or my feigned or measured out vulnerabilities, ministry (oh forget ministry.. LIFE), without daily resetting towards His presence and His heart is EXHAUSTING.
So when my car has been on empty for longer than even I have felt comfortable with and I finally pull into a gas station, it takes a while for that car to be made full again. What if I kept my car at full? It is suggested in very cold places to do just that. Then at every 3/4 tank I pull into fill; I pause my life and pull in to fill up, then it wouldn't take so long each time.
I have been on empty. I have been on empty longer than I care to even think. I have lost imagination and traded it in for my minimal expertise. PATHETIC. I know better. I pushed myself further than I could really go but kept on running on fumes. So as to what? Not look empty? To keep up and not get left behind... To serve God.. UGH... Obedience and not sacrifice is what His heart desires, and He certainly doesn't want His sons and daughters to be laying themselves on man made ministry alters exhausted and depleted beyond recognition.
SO.. Whether you are empty or not.... Begin to practice this, don't have room for one more thing.. Make room for this ... ASK God into every minute of your day! Try to remember as much as you can throughout the day to pray things such as, "Father, into this moment I invite your presence, your council, your wisdom," "Jesus, be with me in this minute," "God, in this minute be with me."
Frank Laubach spoke of how doing just that for a month, your life will be different. I am on day 10 and I can attest to the fact, that it is different. A battle ensues on the insides, if not even more than before, but I capture each moment and draw Him to me and me to Him through invitation. And bit by bit gas/oil is refilling my tank.
So.. one last thing and then I'll be done for now, here is a piece of a journal entry I made today..."When one is empty, be empty! Be empty and wait for Him. Better to have not gotten to that state but if for whatever reason one is found in such a place, be empty and feign not being full. Be empty with Him. I must trust Him in my empty places that He will fill them. Trust Him and lean not on my own understanding. There is no keeping to keep up with and there is no keeping up with Him. Rat races are rat races and I know better. Each walk is so individual, no one is a copy. I pause in this place to be made full, because I want you. Because when people get me without You, it stinks and it exhausts all involved. Just always remember children if they are tired and what they are like, they must take a nap or the afternoon is just to be endured, not lived and certainly not enjoyed."
1 comment:
Beautiful :)
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