Away From the Clanging Gong

There have been many things upon my heart these last few days and weeks. My experiment of learning love continues to be the bearer of unexpected fruit…..
I come to writing this blog entry tonight with my heart in my throat and emotion in my heart…
Clanging cymbals… nothing…… unknown…. Confession… Repentance… Sorrow… Change… Lack of Knowledge…. Worldly thoughts…..

I am finding that it is much harder to write this than I had anticipated. Not so much that I mind confession or repentance but I desire truth in the inner most parts of my being and some of these realizations have really shook me to the core of my being.
I have seen how much I lacked love. How much of a clanging gong I have been. I have taken the easier road at times because it benefitted me and did not say the harder things because of fear of man. I have enjoyed favor with man over the favor of God and responded to title and privilege and glory in many wrong ways. I have wondered about the ministry I have done over the last two decades of my life and thought about how much of it was done more for my satisfaction of serving God then for the people He desired to minister to…. Too impressed with my ability to teach, speak, lead, prophecy, and pray….. Maybe I am being too hard on myself but the truth stands that if I am honest with myself I served God and man so many times for what I received in return.
When I have read through Corinthians and read about the body as the Lord would have us regard it I have received conviction and determination…. Conviction that I have participated in communities where the lesser parts were not given greater honor but instead the parts of the body that don’t need special attention were treated in much the same way as one would think a celebrity would be treated. Conviction that instead walking in a place of love that is patient, kind, not jealous or boastful I watched as envy, jealousy, selfish ambition, and vanity among insecurities worked their way into the lives around me and into my heart.
I have had to take time to repent for receiving identity through more than just Christ.
Some thoughts that have spun around in my head as this process has taken place in my life….
I have been a clanging gong for I have spoken in tongues and had not love…. I have been nothing because I have uttered that which I have heard and seen from God but had not love…. I have not been known by God because I did not feed Him when He was hungry or cloth Him when He was cold…. I have not been known by God although in His name I prayed for healing, deliverance, and salvation….
As I walk forward from this moment and this season in my life I have prayed and asked the Lord that I would be rooted and grounded in love. I love seeing all that He opens my eyes to see… I love hearing all that He opens my ears to hear…. But I love Him more than I love all these things….
There is a song that regards itself more in terms of a woman’s journey through Africa…. But some of the lyrics have hit me as one who has walked a life in ministry for almost the last twenty years…. Sarah Groves sings a song entitled “I Saw What I Saw.”
I saw what I saw and I can't forget it
I heard what I heard and I can't go back
I know what I know and I can't deny it

Something on the road, cut me to the soul

Your pain has changed me
your dream inspires
your face a memory
your hope a fire
your courage asks me what I'm afraid of
(what I am made of)
and what I know of love

we've done what we've done and we can't erase it
we are what we are and it's more than enough
we have what we have but it's no substitution

Something on the road, touched my very soul

I say what I say with no hesitation
I have what I have and I'm giving it up
I do what I do with deep conviction

Something on the road, changed my world

Her path was through the children of Africa… my path has been more the world of religion and ministry. But there are words there that stir my very soul in regards to the world of ministry and faith that I have taken a hold of…..
There is no substitution for loving God and each other…… there is no excuse to not mature into the ways of love and desire unity more than self …… When Christ being our example did not consider equality with God something to be grasped but made Himself a servant of all we should be ashamed of ourselves when we walk around with celebrity Christian leaders at the helm.
The pain of those that have been left by the wayside on the road of religion and ministry has burned itself into my being… the fact that there are some of those out there that think only the names on the poster can hear and see and taste all of God’s ministry…..
The face and the hope of Christ burned into my heart …. His desire for a bride not anything less provokes me towards love and service…..
I love to teach…. I love to see… I love to hear…. I love to minister to God’s people…. But that is what we are … We are all God’s people.. His children… together… not one over one another but all together….
I want to be known as a child of His not a resounding gong and so I pledge my heart to love as He loved to recline against Him as John did and catch His heart beat and not minister one step until that beat is the beat of everything I do …. May we all catch that rhythm.