He already has that ... you don't need to pray....

I feel like I am being awoken to a level of trust that in all honesty I find I bit unnerving.... trust ... I do trust Him... I trust that He will never leave me nor forsake me... I trust that though I walk through the waters I will not be harmed.... but I know that there will be waters.... I trust that He walks with me and walks me through the valleys of the shadow of death and that I need fear no evil .... But I know that there is evil and I know that the valleys..... and they aren't places I like :)

But His goodness is solid and His strength overwhelmingly reliant....

This morning.. (and we are going to take several bunny trails through this blog.. so bare with me... or not... but here we go) this morning my four year old son was in bed with Jim and I and he wasn't feeling one hundred percent... I turned to Him and prayed.. and still he wasn't feeling well... I turned back to him and prayed again.... in a few minutes he was feeling well.... so I began to pray prayers of gratitude.. and prayers over Gregory's life....

I was interrupted as I prayed..... this experience began to unfold... an angel holding a scroll came and stood in front of me and I heard the Lord speak...

I had prayed prayers of thanksgiving for the Lord touching my son and then started to pray a prayer that would just simply ask the Lord to follow him all the days of His life..... now let me be real careful here... there was not condemnation for praying the wrong thing... it was not a harsh rebuke.... it was a simple "your son already has that...... you don't need to pray... just thank Me that it is so..." I had asked that the goodness of the Lord would follow him all the days of his life.... but I do... I do know that to be so... it is scriptural truth in the psalms we are told that the goodness and lovingkindness of the Lord will follow us all the days of our life in psalm 23....

Let me step into a place with you that the Lord has led me into... I got what it was He was saying... and I am not afraid of praying ... "right" way... "wrong" way... there was something the Father truly wanted to convey.. hence the presence and experience of this timing in the morning... it was not a slight whisper... it wasn't unclear what it was He was saying ... He has led me to this path and upon it and I knew He was only bringing me deeper....

Here is a part of my journey that I feel He wants me to share with you.... There are truths that we would all believe.... we would or could all read the same scripture and believe that it was true..... we could read that He has crowned us with loving kindness or my new personal favorite these days found in psalm 36 is this....

5 Your lovingkindness, O LORD, [d]extends to the heavens,
Your faithfulness reaches to the skies.
6 Your righteousness is like the [e]mountains of God;
Your judgments are like a great deep.
O LORD, You preserve man and beast.
7 How precious is Your lovingkindness, O God!
And the children of men take refuge in the shadow of Your wings.
8 They drink their fill of the [f]abundance of Your house;
And You give them to drink of the river of Your delights.
9 For with You is the fountain of life;
In Your light we see light.

In particular verse 8...... I have been halted upon that verse... I had been led there this week to pray for a friend and within those prayers the Lord let fireworks explode into my heart and has thrusted me upon this journey.....

I have done this before with the Lord... taken something He has said scripturally and asked Him to make it real in my life...

The first time I remember walking this way with the Lord was over the verse... we can love because we have first been loved... and while I could be religious about it and say yes... yes... He loved me first.. while I was yet His enemy He died for me and greater love has no one ever known... yes... that is truth my dear parrot and so glad that I can say it no different then a bird could be taught to repeat it...

But my heart did not know that truth... I had never known love.... not in a way that was going to be able to propel me into life and be a source of strength and comfort for me.... so I took that verse to my Father and said.. Your word says this... but I don't know the truth of that word for myself ... please.. please make it real to me.. love me so fully first that I can love... not out of the flesh love or in my own power love .. but as this verse says.... let me know love so that I can walk my life loving others with the love that I have received.... let me receive that love in a real and tangible way.... and He DID!!!!!! Through a season of life He did... He taught me what it was to be loved by Himself and by others and I will never be the same... I tasted and saw the goodness in a land and He brought me to life...

And that was what He was saying this morning.... declaring over me and my child and my whole family... "know what you have in me...." ... "know what I have already promised you..." and instead of asking.... thank me... thank me.... it declares a depth of knowing Him I believe is what He was saying..... if instead of asking for lovingkindness and goodness of His to follow us I take that which I know and say thank you Lord that goodness and lovingkindness follow us all the days of our lives and now Father make it clear how they do so.... show us tangibly every day how Your great... astounding ... amazing... incredible goodness and perfect lovingkindness follow us every moment ... of every day..... that is what it says..... and that is what I am asking... I thank Him for it... I trust Him for it.. and I ask that He would draw my attentions to it.... it is not a name it and claim it thing... it is these are Your words to me.... pull me up into the truth of them......

The wonder of it all is that I feel in a deeper way that He is causing me and drawing me more and more into His nature and His ways... for His lovingkindness and goodness don't always manifest as the world would think BUT they always manifest as He knows them to be and they always point me further into Him and that which is true..... I love His ways... they bring forth a life I never even thought to imagine could be walked upon this earth... but I am grateful... oh so so so very very grateful.....