A cultured vulnerability... or better stated ...When one is empty...

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."

Anima Christi

Soul of Christ, sanctify me. 

Body of Christ, save me. 

Blood of Christ, inebriate me. 

Water from the side of Christ, wash me. 

Passion of Christ, strengthen me. 

O Good Jesus, hear me. 

Within your wounds hide me. 

Permit me not to be separated from you.

 From the wicked foe, defend me. 

At the hour of my death, call me and bid me come to you That with your saints I may praise you For ever and ever. Amen.

Life handed me a car accident.

God handed me a prayer.

I've never been one big on devotionals or anything like that.  Daily practices yes but nothing normally found in a 365 day type devotional.  Still spend more time just waiting upon Him and reading scriptures and writing. However, through a series of events I found The Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius. I found it so intriguing that having walked with Stir The Water for almost a decade and believed in spiritual exercises and training our senses to discern that which is around us, I found a very similar heart within a tradition that I had known nothing about.

It has been an incredibly precious intersection of faith for me.  Saved at 19 and lived within Charismatic circles for the last 23 years.  And yet I feel such a drawing towards liturgy as well. One church I know calls it, "The Liturgy and The Shout."

Such wealth of faith and encouragement has entered into me through these magnificent exercises, confirmation of what we have done and new paths to walk upon.

Within them I was introduced to this prayer... I felt I was to take it slowly.  A line per day, even longer.. pausing.. waiting.. meditating upon each statement.  What was it really speaking to me?

And then today I entered into a very sweet and peaceful understanding.

I had been laying down and just resting when I realized that the presence in the room was so inviting. It was so comforting. It was so peaceful. I felt wrapped. I felt secure.  I felt warm.  I wrote in my journal, "A solid quietness has pervaded my day.  It has been beautiful, beautiful and quiet, and solid and steady; did I say quiet?"

I have  been working on taming my tongue. (Not spouting out every emotional vomit that I would want to ... you spend almost four weeks in bed and see what you would be saying... )

I have been inviting Christ into my emotions. I have been inviting Christ into my minutes. (More on that soon in another posting)  

As I sat in His presence.  It's sweet solidness pervaded the room.  I hadn't asked for Him to come. I hadn't even spent "time" with Him this morning.  I had been working on getting my emotions in check around some disappointments I had been facing.  I wasn't pouting and ignoring Him, but I wasn't welcoming either.. A neutral standoff of sorts or so I would like to think. But He is never neutral. Especially when it comes to one of His own.

Then.. out of the blue, He reminded me of the first line in the Anima Christi.  

Traditional version: "Soul of Christ, sanctify me."  Contemporary translation: "Jesus, may all that is you flow into me."

Revelation hit me heart.  One of my life verses... Isaiah 30:15... It was that quietness spoken of there... and a quiet and solid strength was indeed being added to my soul...  I had been trying to control my words, trying to hand over my emotions, trying to not give into patterns of the flesh, the world, the enemy.... And I realized He had taken my proverbial two loaves and had multiplied them...  

Soul of Christ, Sanctify me....  All that is of you, Jesus, set me apart, consecrate me unto yourself, declare me whole and holy through you and your ways...

Yes, we must be careful of the traditions of men and not nullify the word of God nor our faith by them, however (ESPECIALLY in Charismatic and Pentecostal communities), we must not throw them away either. Their rich heritage and historical value have voices for all of us today...

The ways of Christ sanctify me, call me out and away from things of this world. My "rights" are crucified and I am declared dead and yet alive. Abundantly alive in Him.. Be blessed....

Because it always intrigued me... Allowing curiosity to pull me into His magnificent heart

I lost that which I once had.

The journey back has been daunting and cumbersome and difficult. It has been filled with cynicism and hostility on my part.  A fury at times that has had me entertain the most horrid of thoughts regarding man and church and life as a Christian.  But.... and as a man who I recently heard speak once said.. there are big buts out there and this is one of them.....

You may have read my blog posts or known me through the ministry of Stir The Water or other places,  If you have read a while then you know I am passionate about a few main topics.  I do have 6 children but I would not be your typical mommy/Christian blogger... I'd tell you that one of my children learned the most profound spiritual lesson while watch the tv show, Weeds.  Now I hate that show but we believe in choice within reason in our family.  And it came to pass that indeed one child learned the truest lesson while watching it. 

Well with that confession I might have lost you.. But then that is alright. You weren't mine to ever have... I'm not looking for subscribers really. I write because I want to write. It is still the one avenue in my life that remains the least tainted, so to it I fly.  I close my eyes and place my hands upon the keyboard and in that moment it might as well be a piano for me, the words and all swirl together and I hear their harmonies, I see their notes...

I don't know Him as I would desire and in some places I know Him less then I once did.  How is that possible? Oh there was a time my heart was much less encumbered by cares.  Anyone who has parented for a long while understands that the problems of the twenty year old are not as easily solved as that of the two year old and that the proverbial band aids are much more costly, financially and emotionally.

So is true for one who is no longer an infant in Christ.  You see I know better. But in the longevity of seasons that taunt and play out the vast wilderness before me,  I forsake long suffering and just want out. Unlike Brother Lawrence who could write, " in these times of dryness and unclearness that bother our souls, there needs to be fidelity to Him."  I just was crying uncle. Or where he writes, "I am keenly aware of my faults, but I am not discouraged by them."  I guess I am still under some delusion because I am very discouraged by them, indeed.

God will then speak and push me forward away from anger and hardness of heart, and He will call out for me to not be angry but to entice.  Entice and woo with the reality of His magnificence.  Use words, He will say, use words to express the beauty and purity of my heart.  Paint pictures with words and know me once again like you once did, embrace the child like faith and not hostility. Be kind to those in the Body who you would rather call a moron. NO.. He didn't say that... not that last bit anyway.. 

For you see if we truly encountered even the smallest iota of the reality of who He is, we would melt away with the depth of affection  that pours forth from Him.  That reality is hard to see if my eyes are more upon the world.  And my eyes have been more upon the world.. Someone just posted to Facebook today this brilliant quote from Bill Johnson, 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.

Out of memory, out of know how.. how boring and utterly predictable of mankind. Find the 5 step plan that works and stick with it and become its expert... Except the Spirit of God rarely works that way.. and the 5 step plan that worked in one place that was God ordained and breathed upon was never meant to become a serpent upon a stick.

What intrigues me?  He does.. He terrifies me intrigues me and bewilders me and renders my heart utterly captive.  I, like Peter, in this time of life speak out that I would leave Him if I had another place to go.. But sadly I have seen the vanity of all else and realize that there is no other place to go but to His side.  He intrigues me and before I would allow decades of ministry to  take their toll, I knew that.  I knew that better.  Away with the cynicism and look wise in my own eyes.

Hope is so much more powerful in the long run even after it has left our hearts sick, the truth is that the truest of hopes never disappoints.... So that intrigues me too...

His thoughts and His ways and Him.. That! All of that intrigues me... 

His love.. that He loves us... That intrigues me

His compassion

His mercy

His grace

His throne

His righteousness

His Justice

His ability to make all things new

 

I am so thoroughly intrigued by Him and His history of how He has walked with man, how He has loved us when we wouldn't love Him back.. How He pursues us relentlessly.

I don't know that... I don't understand it.. I believe it but I don't grasp it not really.. I can even teach on some of those things but they haven't landed not fully... not even close to the fullness of the reality of what they really are... I want to know more... I believe plenty.. It is time to know...

More than anything upon me now is the challenge Brother Lawrence puts out there.. In these times of dryness and uncertainty that bother the soul, there needs to be fidelity to Him.. So in this whopping freakishly long wilderness, FIDELITY has become the goal.. Not in exterior actions but within my heart.. for that is what Christ really desires.. Truth in the inner most places.. I, earnestly, believe He cares not so much for the exterior of things but so very thoroughly upon the interior He places His finger... 

So that is what intrigues me... That I being so faithless could still be the object of His faithful affections...  That should intrigue you... Be intrigued .. Allow curiosity to pull you into His magnificent heart

...to choose in the face of it all, not death but life! Nouwen speaks from the heart.. a path to follow

I know so many (too many) ministers and people in ministry that could echo Nouwen's words as he wrote them in his, An Inner Voice of Love:A Journey through Anguish to Freedom.  When I read his introduction to this piece, I saw words that echoed my own heart, and passages that were filled with
emotions I sadly too understood.

"Just when I had found a home, I felt absolutely homeless. Just when I was being praised for my spiritual insights, I felt devoid of faith. Just when people were thanking me for bringing them closer to God, I felt that God had abandoned me."

I saw in his words feelings that echo my own and that echo those I have watched in ministry.

I will share this picture that the Lord showed me a short while back.  It was of a clay jug, it had a wide mouth, a narrow middle and a rounded base.  I knew He wanted me to look inside...  There was a black murky and moldy substance around the bottom.  "This ... This is what you are pulling from." In essence I had so been pulling on my own know how in ministry and in teaching and directing that I had become more like the foolish virgins and allowed my own lamp to run out.

These last few articles about realizing the surface beauty of Pharoh's chariots and the strength of his horses, and how instead of trusting upon that strength and ability we must cease striving and know Him as God.  We must rest.  We must lean.  We must center our interior life upon Him.  In all our getting and doing we play the vain fool.  Instead we must turn and rest in His shadow. We must linger and breath Him in as the air we need to fill our lungs.


To become human again. Not machines of ministry, or consumables that the public can enjoy for an hour or two but not know nor understand and potentially not even care about the cost upon the person pouring out. I know too many men and women  who have been devoured.  In some places out of their own need and vanity to build and to be received and welcomed and wanted.  We all have exchanged the glory of God, His thoughts and opinions, for the tantalizing adulteries and idolatries. We have been as lunatics going after the vapor like praises of men and positions granted and public acclaim, rather than stand in the solid places of the powerful and quiet and abundant and CONSISTENT affections of God.

I am tired of seeing the effects on both the minister who ends up in the most horrific of places as well as the religious laziness of the majority.  It is time to (NOT out of performance mentality but out of need for survival) realize the depths to which we are loved and rest in that love so that we can arise as those who were once dry bones but are now the empowered exceedingly great army of God...

This is our most essential calling .. this is the path of  life.. to seek Him while He may be found and to open our hearts and hear what He is saying...  To invite the Lord into your days and moments you will never be disappointed.. take the time and quiet yourself and in all your pursuit of the Kingdom make sure your utmost pursuit is of Him...  all else will and does pass away... the vanity under the sun makes it self known... it is not new .. but a very old struggle... Embrace Him and vanity flees...

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.

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...