how about a little meat…and, man, do I need to learn how to Honour.

in light of the previous entry….soup for the soul:

“Even though the Destroyer has destroyed Judah, the Lord will restore it’s honour. Israel’s vine has been stripped of branches, but He will restore it’s splendor.” Nahum 2:2

“The Lord is good, a strong refue when troubles come. He is close to those who trust in Him.” Nahum 1:7

“I will break the yoke of bondage from your neck and tear off the hcains of Assyrian oppression.” Nahum 1:13

“The Lord will bring me into His light and I will see His righteousness.” Micah 1:9
“Though I fall I will rise again. Though I sit in darkness, the Lord will be my light.” Micah 7:7

“Cheer up Zion! Don’t be afraid! For the Lord your God is living among you. He is a mighty savior. He will take delight in you with gladness. WIth his love, he will calm all your fears. He will rejoice over you with joyful songs….You will be disgraced no more.” Zephaniah 3:17-18

“I will restore your fortunes before their eyes, I the Lord have spoken.” Zephaniah 3:20

“I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in Him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.” Romans 15:13

“Our hearts ache but we always have joy. We are poor but we give spiritual riches to others. We own nothing yet we have everything.” 2 Corinthians 6:10

searching

It’s funny….has been such a long time since I’ve entered a post that I have almost forgotten the art of precision when it comes to blogging.

For that I am sorry and hopeful you will permit a bit of grace while I ramble a bit.  Maybe I”m dumb. Clearly. That has already been proven by many.  But these days, there is so much that i want to speak/say, and feel void of a voice. No identity= no life. And that is the opposite of what Jesus died to give us.  And yet, when the words are there, they have been  full of bitterness and anger/resentment.  Not good.  Dont’ know what to do about that apart from continously offer it up to the Lord and ask for mercy.

This is a far safer way to share, and since no one will be reading, it is seemingly harmless.  I hate the fact that anger is tucked away in these words/in my heart still after wandering so far down the healing path.  Like spontaneous combustion, however, I will implode if I can’t speak.

It seems that everything is in a whirlwind these days and serious correction has happened along with blessings that have been disguised as punishment.  A few friends have been involved in car accidents, people have been sick left and right with various forms of illnesses, homes in forclosure, friends losing love/marriage, death, etc. 

Everything that can be shaken is shaking and it leaves you wondering what is there to put your hope in? Clearly I mean this from a biblical perspective. I dont’ have the answers and the last thing that I want to do right now is come up with some sort of trite answer expecting to “know it all” when the reality is that I haven’t heard what the wise ones have said yet. And yet, underneath it all, I believe without a shadow of a doubt in God’s goodness and that we will overcome and that we have already overcome and that this present reality is not the reality that we are living in.  We are seated with Him in heavenly places, we have been deemed co-heirs with Christ, and everything that belongs to Him belongs to us. We have the ability to pull heaven to earth, we are full of creative ideas and flow in an urban world while living in concrete jungles, we have art in us that is yet to be painted, songs yet to be sung in voices that only angels can hear. We have remedies for diseases and social ailments. We have keys to unlock heaven within us. In fact the Lord recently showed me a picture of thousands of keys being deposited into the hands of a child, and unlocking many doors of understanding.  David’s keys. But there is this intangible middle. The unseen arena that keeps sabotaging success. I dont’ know what to do about that.  Failed attempts at careers, relationships, living situations, bank accounts = failure, from a human perspective.  And at the same time, I see people being promoted in amazing ways.  God’s grace is displayed in that. Truth. Mercy. 

Confession #1- I am a learner.  Will not apologize for that. Everything that I have built my life on in the past seems to be shaking which means that there is still much to be had and it’s okay to admit that.

Confession #2 – I don’t know Jack. Literally. I thought I did know him but now am beginning to think that there is MUCH more to Mr. D than I ever knew and believe that he carries the scars on his body to prove it. To get a glimpse of intimacy that he has with Jesus is a path that few get to walk.  He/they will remain heroes forever. This isn’t flattery. It is truth.

Confession #3 -  How much personal responsibility is tied up in the events we are facing today? Where is the Father’s Love present in this? And how do you reconcile it? In no way am I attempting to making excuses. Sincerely want to understand HOW Father’s Love is communicated in the midst of financial despair and seemingly irresponsible behavior. He is ONLY loving, so am a bit perplexed on this one.  Everything I have learned has been communicated in such a way that suggests His corrections are kind and lead us to repentance. We don’t feel “beaten up” after the process. So where  then, do we place those days where we feel so “raw” and exposed within the church and around people, the days where we cannot fit to save our lives and we continuously feel like we are clinging to a rope that is barely within our grasp while everyone else is holding on much farther up the knot.

Confession #4 – what do you do when all of your natural resources are dried up and you have already had 2 life changes in career/purpose direction and you no longer know where your “assingment” is? Those times when the voice of the Lord is silent, prayer is hitting a wall, and you are tired of the tears? Where do you turn then? It is not a self pitying thing. It is more the attitude of realizing that there is SO much need out there…wanting to be an agent of change, recognizing that the needs are insurmountable when attempting to accomplish them individually, and yet not knowing where your place is in game.  Each part is significant, and when your heart’s desire has always been invested in one arena and then the Lord quickly redirects the arena and you are left wondering what planet you are on, what do you do then?

Confession #5- how do you deal with the homeless? they are always there. they do not go away. they are young. they have children. i have spent the last year talking with some of them and building relationships with them.  they have the answers. and they live impoverished nontheless. and i get a home. and i had a home in a very posh place. that is unfair. i see them often. they have been appearing in this home. lying on the couch.  this is new. has not happened before.  i dont’ know what to do about that. some of them are christians. some are not.  they have many spirits that follow them.  it’s become hard to distinguish them now.  i’m coming to realize that only love remains.  And i do love some of them.  Not brave enough to say all

Confession #6 – What about the cross? How often do you visit it? How often is it/should it be in your face? What does living by grace look like?

Confession #7 – We need Him so much more.  We need Him.  We need You.  We need You Jesus.  That is the only confession left. Jesus, we need You, a wide open and breathing manifestation of your goodness to come smathering and laddling us up in an experience of tangible bliss that would demonstrate for the generations to come that your character is ONLY good and that you are loving and that you have a redemptive plan in effect that is preserving your inheritance. You care Daddy God. We are your most prized possession…nothing can separate us from your love. If you have set your stamp of approval and affection on us, then how could you abandon us to famine? How could you do such a thing? So we have to go….with arms wide open, because the world is wide open.  The world is wide open and waiting, groaning, hungering for the sons and daughters of God to be released. 

Jesus, open wide the gates. Blow a trumpet in Zion. Sound the alarm. Release us Father.  Blow the trumpet in Zion. It is the year of the Lord’s favor. We ask you for the nations Jesus.  They are your inheritance. 

Release assignments. Make them clear Lord. Jobless = not your will. Barren = not your will.  Impoverished = not your will. Relationally barren = not your will. 

You desire abundance.  Wholesome goodness in every area of our lives.  Jesus will you fullfill these barren places.

relationship cues from Danny and Sheri Silk

Sharing a blog from the Silk’s post…..
They are such a blessing.
The 7 Pillars of Healthy Relationships

Danny Silk
May 2, 2008

The 7 Pillars of Healthy Relationships

Proverbs 9:1
Wisdom has built her house, she has hewn out her 7 pillars…

Though God is invisible, He is a greater reality.
Love can not be cultivated separate from character. We need both to produce the glory of the Lord in our community and our families. We need to partner with God to see His glory poured out on the earth. With our character we validate heaven.

Unconditional acceptance is foundational. (value, love, no need to change you)
Communicate that you get to be you and I get to be me.

Galations 6:1 Be able to approach people without the need to control them. Don’t need to change them.

1. Love – a quality of environment, we have a safe place, intimacy
Rooted in the fact that what you see, you don’t need to change. A safe place where you can both be known.

2. Honour – you feel powerful around me. I value you, listen, engage.

Love and honour need to co-exist. If you remove one, you threaten the other.

3. Self-Control – I manage myself to a line that doesn’t threaten you. I protect
freedom between us. I’m trying to build trust by practising trust.

4. Responsibility – I must respond to the situations in my life. Anticipate life and
be prepared for it. I need a plan for what I’m going to do with me in the
face of your choices. Core Values. Able to respond is Response-able.

5. Truth – we can’t fear someone’s reaction to the truth in order to justify lying.
Speak the truth to one another in love. Can you tell the truth without being
scared? Can you let people see who you are and not be afraid that they
will try to change you? Relationships are tested for truth through conflict
and covenant. A lack of trust says more about you than the person you
don’t trust. The pillar of trust helps you to let someone else know how
much you trust them. There’s no way someone can supply what you need
without you telling the truth.

6. Faith – do you lay aside your knowledge of God for the sake of self
preservation in a relationship? There has to be a supernatural
accountability or I will yield to my own selfish tendencies in the light of
struggle.

7. Vision – any relationship has to have a purpose. Our pain needs a purpose. If
the vision is foggy, the pain becomes to tough to endure. The clarity of
vision in a relationship help move you from struggle to a higher goal.

The pillars hold Peace, Hope and Joy.
To get happy, we need to understand healthy. Without the pillars your relationships fail and you need to start over. It is very expensive to fail at certain levels of intimacy.

Our master lover is stunning at these pillars. If we practise and protect this relationship with him we will be changed. Love changes lovers. I will change what I need to change to protect my intimacy with my wife. I will do whatever I have to do to protect this. We mistake love as control. It has to be I will change FOR you, not I will change you.

Prov 25:28
Whoever has no rule over his own spirit is like a city broken down, without walls.

You become plundered and live in a condition of poverty.

If I protect your Freedom – you are self-controlled.
If I violate your freedom, you lose control.
If you are self-controlled, you have self-respect.
Self respect accompanies courage.
If you have courage, you can set boundaries.
Boundaries accompany integrity.

I can be a person of integrity because I can live what’s on the inside. Integrity is drawing what’s inside out. No show on the outside to try to cover. I will not allow my externals to determine my integrity. If I am control of what’s in me, I don’t need to control what’s around me. When I manage me, that’s what makes me powerful.

What may come may come, but I have a plan. What am I going to do with me when I feel threatened, scared?

If I have no control over me, I will not experience the freedom that Jesus dies to give me.

2 Cor 3:17 They suddenly realized that God is a living personal presence, not a piece of chiselled stone. When he’s present, a living Spirit, that old constricting legislation is recognized as obsolete, we’re free of it.

relationship cues from Danny and Sheri Silk

Sharing a blog from the Silk’s post…..
They are such a blessing.
The 7 Pillars of Healthy Relationships

Danny Silk
May 2, 2008

The 7 Pillars of Healthy Relationships

Proverbs 9:1
Wisdom has built her house, she has hewn out her 7 pillars…

Though God is invisible, He is a greater reality.
Love can not be cultivated separate from character. We need both to produce the glory of the Lord in our community and our families. We need to partner with God to see His glory poured out on the earth. With our character we validate heaven.

Unconditional acceptance is foundational. (value, love, no need to change you)
Communicate that you get to be you and I get to be me.

Galations 6:1 Be able to approach people without the need to control them. Don’t need to change them.

1. Love – a quality of environment, we have a safe place, intimacy
Rooted in the fact that what you see, you don’t need to change. A safe place where you can both be known.

2. Honour – you feel powerful around me. I value you, listen, engage.

Love and honour need to co-exist. If you remove one, you threaten the other.

3. Self-Control – I manage myself to a line that doesn’t threaten you. I protect
freedom between us. I’m trying to build trust by practising trust.

4. Responsibility – I must respond to the situations in my life. Anticipate life and
be prepared for it. I need a plan for what I’m going to do with me in the
face of your choices. Core Values. Able to respond is Response-able.

5. Truth – we can’t fear someone’s reaction to the truth in order to justify lying.
Speak the truth to one another in love. Can you tell the truth without being
scared? Can you let people see who you are and not be afraid that they
will try to change you? Relationships are tested for truth through conflict
and covenant. A lack of trust says more about you than the person you
don’t trust. The pillar of trust helps you to let someone else know how
much you trust them. There’s no way someone can supply what you need
without you telling the truth.

6. Faith – do you lay aside your knowledge of God for the sake of self
preservation in a relationship? There has to be a supernatural
accountability or I will yield to my own selfish tendencies in the light of
struggle.

7. Vision – any relationship has to have a purpose. Our pain needs a purpose. If
the vision is foggy, the pain becomes to tough to endure. The clarity of
vision in a relationship help move you from struggle to a higher goal.

The pillars hold Peace, Hope and Joy.
To get happy, we need to understand healthy. Without the pillars your relationships fail and you need to start over. It is very expensive to fail at certain levels of intimacy.

Our master lover is stunning at these pillars. If we practise and protect this relationship with him we will be changed. Love changes lovers. I will change what I need to change to protect my intimacy with my wife. I will do whatever I have to do to protect this. We mistake love as control. It has to be I will change FOR you, not I will change you.

Prov 25:28
Whoever has no rule over his own spirit is like a city broken down, without walls.

You become plundered and live in a condition of poverty.

If I protect your Freedom – you are self-controlled.
If I violate your freedom, you lose control.
If you are self-controlled, you have self-respect.
Self respect accompanies courage.
If you have courage, you can set boundaries.
Boundaries accompany integrity.

I can be a person of integrity because I can live what’s on the inside. Integrity is drawing what’s inside out. No show on the outside to try to cover. I will not allow my externals to determine my integrity. If I am control of what’s in me, I don’t need to control what’s around me. When I manage me, that’s what makes me powerful.

What may come may come, but I have a plan. What am I going to do with me when I feel threatened, scared?

If I have no control over me, I will not experience the freedom that Jesus dies to give me.

2 Cor 3:17 They suddenly realized that God is a living personal presence, not a piece of chiselled stone. When he’s present, a living Spirit, that old constricting legislation is recognized as obsolete, we’re free of it.

Yes, creating something from nothing is war.

The enemy hates it.

I just spent the last hour writing, pouring out, and prodding over thoughts that have been roaming around and was pleased with the outcome only to have all of it lost.

Anything worth investing in will always be sabotaged bec the enemy hates it when life is born.

Create, make, give birth, live, love, relish in, swim, linger, delight in, grow inside, fill, fulfill, satisfy, satiate, effect, make, change.

Let love in.

deductive reasoning = contentment cannot be measured by life’s circumstances. They are an inconsistent medium.

Joy must be found in deeper recesses.The place where dreams come from and man can never steal them. The inner sanctum. The holy of holies.

Life is subject to change. That is an expected certainty. What we do with the change and outcome is determined by ourselves alone.

Jesus, thank you that you are the one constant in the exchange called Life.

 

these are the days you will remember

Hopefully you won’t mind if I just brag on Daddy-God a little bit. Things were so rough for so long and now that  there is a glimmer of hope along the way I feel it right only to share.

HOPE.

This is my second week at a new job. A job that is really quite remarkable.  I work for Children’s Champions, a non-profit that seeks federal funds for children who are struggling in school.  The remarkable thing, is that it just fell into my lap. After being out of consistent work for the last 7 months, unable to collect unemployment, and just like everyone else looking for a job, I got a call from a woman who directs the program asking if I would be interested in an Assistant Director position. To my chagrin I told her I would pray about it.  I had really believed that God wanted me to teach, so I was pursuing that avenue.  After door after door closing and facing massive frustration with every school that I subbed for, it finally dawned on me that God doesn’t want me to teach. Yes, it takes some of us quite a long time to get it.

Initially, I felt that I was losing something precious, but after the first week, the peace and calm that quieted my soul was so refreshing that I had to ask a friend if this is how most people live.  I was so used to living with such stress from the classroom, that it didn’t dawn on me that life didn’t have to be this way. But God knew better. This job is much better  suited for this fiery temperament. There is a pace that breathes peace here.  And I am able to help entire families, not just focus on FCAT results and academics.

My point is this: what I thought that I needed and what was good for me actually was creating undo stress in my life, and until I let go and stepped into something new, I had no idea that there was more out there.  And this more is happening in every area of my life.

For example, walking in the local grocers on Saturday. I was in a funk and frustrated with certain details of life, but instead of wallowing, I decided to make some cookies and then take them to a friend.  On the way to her house, I heard the Lord say go to the local grocery store, Ghetto Dixie. At least that’s what it’s called on my side of town.  On the way in, the Lord kind of highlighted this man in a wheel chair rolling around the corner, and I felt Him say “bring him some cookies…” so i did. Mind you, this stranger thought it some strange joke that a random girl offer him cookies, but after a little explanation he received them, and said “these are healing cookies…” After that, I was gripped. We talked for about an hour. He said that he had been in an accident over 30 years ago and had been in a wheelchair ever since. He was homeless, addicted to crack, and was looking for  hope.  All of the sudden, God just started pouring out massive amounts of love in my heart for this man, Willie.  He said that He wanted to heal his legs and that He was very proud of who he had become. That he is blessed and favored and even though the world doesn’t see him that way, God does.  He said that He was going to help him walk again.  The next thing that I know, the man reached under his wheelchair and pulled out a crack pipe and threw it into the street where a car ran after shortly thereafter. He was crying and saying that God sent me there, and I was in shock. I couldn’t believe that God would use me, a chick in a bad mood with cookies, to minister to this man.  I really kept feeling like God wanted to heal his legs, so I asked the man if he could walk…he said that he could with crutches, so with my help, he stood up and started moving his legs and feet all around. 100% painless. Usually he experienced some pain in his legs but had none at that point. Praise God.  After a few minutes he sat back down. We believe these are the beginning stages of healing….Lord, complete what you started so long ago in his life.

What overwhelmed me more than anything was the tremendous compassion that was flowing through me for this man.  He was so full of hope as we were talking. I just wanted to hug him and love him and let Jesus clear away all of the cobwebs. Willy B will forever be on my mind. God is believably good.

Two days later, I got a call from a family member saying that my uncle was admitted into ICU for an alcohol induced coma….they were not sure how long he would live.

NO. Death is not an option for a man only 60. Especially when it pertains to alcoholism.  So we prayed and believed God for healing and after spending some time with him, there was clarity in his eyes again.  He will beat this with the help of a lot of love.

Once again, prayer moved a mountain.

Miracles are popping up everywhere.

Our God is living and is a God of the Living, not the Dead. He said that we would manifest greater works than what Jesus did on the earth. So, I guess I am finally starting to believe Him and taking risks like praying for miracles. If it is happening in Redding, CA and in Mozambique, and in South America, and in Canada, then surely it can happen here in Jacksonville, FL. All it takes is a willingness to say Yes.

God, give us more miracles. Let your presence be so real that others can’t help but ask what that fragrance is that accompanies us. Jesus, make us more like You. Help us walk the way that You walk.

mystery and wonderland

So thankful for words…and lots of them today. Especially the ability to write them out  instead of having them roam around this jumbled assortment that seems to equate  reality today.

Mystery.

“I never want to get to a place where I become an expert on anything.” – Bill Johnson

Those words bring a soothing calm to the frantic barage of ideas and wonderings and longings and findings that seem to be evolving in the midst of love written on a page of black and white and red letters.

Perhaps, because Bill Johnson, a hero of the faith, is giving us permission to remain like little children, preserving the WONDER of God, pressing in for more of the unknowns…the Word speaks of that….Proverbs says “it is the glory of God to conceal a matter, the glory of the king to pursue it….” We are invited by God to seek out the unknowns…and yet there is no guarantee that we have all of the answers.

God is so much bigger than understanding. He is never the same. He doesn’t come the same way every time.  Sometimes glory looks like gold-dust and feathers, sometimes it looks like broken hearts, sometimes it looks like laughter, other times it looks like still waters. He doesn’t bring us into Himself only to be reduced to all of the answers. He is an unending search for answers that are complex, fully alive, brimming with goodness, and full of peace and calm, joy and anticipation, forgiveness and freedom.

Freedom.

He Breathes

peace into the chaos.

He brings Love

into the Hurt and hardened ones.

He brings Healing to the Broken cisterns.

And Light to the  Dark.

He is really alive on the inside. And when we have Him on the inside, we really become alive.

What does this mean?

Why all of the questions?

Recently, my faith has been challenged in ways that  I would have thought not possible before.

There are those things of God, those mysteries that are being unveiled that are actually perplexing because they are confronting ideologies that I formerly thought were God, but perhaps was my limited understanding.
He is breaking off mindsets…that is scary.

But I have to have more. I must have more of YOU in me Jesus…once you’re in , you cannot go back. It isn’t possible if you want to live abudance.

Lord, give us the faith to keep asking the questions and keep seeking the answers and not satisfied with where we are, always longing for MORE. And always moved in Wonder.

Dancing over poverty.

Dancing over lack.

Dancing over shame.

Dancing on the enemy’s back.

Dancing on manipulation.

Dancing on control.

Dancing my way to victory.

Dancing until there is a release in my soul.

Dancing over poverty.

Dancing over victimization.

Dancing over manipulation.

Dancing over control.

Dancing over shame.

Dancing my way to you oh Lord.