photo credits: David Peight

That was the title of the message we heard yesterday. I listened, saturated with joy… unable to remain silent the whole way through. In fact, the joy was so powerful, I suddenly became aware of clenched fists in my lap. :)
Why have I lived so much of my life knowing this was true, that He could be alive and real within, but having no idea just HOW real, how deep and lasting the joy and life could be…?
Looking around, the desire springing up in our hearts was obvious. And suddenly, I realized, knowing that Jesus can be flowing like a fountain through our hearts, literally pouring out of our bellies as rivers of living water is one thing… and HAVING Him be just that… is as close to us as one little moment of faith.
God will cleanse our hearts of the blocks of fear, condemnation, confusion, religion, and discouragement, in a moment, if we ask. He promised. And when they are gone, we can reach out, and grasp something REAL. We can touch Him… be filled with Him… love Him like never before.
And then, Christ within becomes EVERYTHING. And our life is no longer our own. We become the most joyful possession we have ever been.

Strange title, eh?

Yes… I am pondering a man.  Today, I am seeing Abraham through different eyes than I ever have before.  So often, he is depicted as a strong, almost feelingless man who followed God without question.  But I don’t believe it.  I am thinking of him today, and picturing his heart following God’s wrenching command to sacrifice his son… his only son.  How does one sacrifice God’s own promise when God cannot break His promises?  But surely that is what Abraham thought he must do in order to obey such a foolish command.  I’m pondering the days before, when Abraham carried God’s promise with his aging body, never letting go of faith, but wondering.  I am sure he wondered… how?  What thoughts must have followed God’s promise once again at age 99?  I dare to think that Abraham’s heart was just as human as mine… that he wondered how God could work in such doubtful circumstances, even while he knew God WOULD.  Yes, he believed God, and I wonder how his heart felt when he first held Isaac in his arms.  At last, a tangible, squirming living evidence that God truly does honor faith.  What must he have thought as he gazed into Isaac’s eyes?  He must have dreamed night and day of the powerful nation that would descend from his precious son.  He must have poured affection and guidance into his little boy like no father ever did before.  His faith must have deepened daily as he watched that little countenance grow bright with potential and promise.

And then… then came the voice of God, shattering his dreams and calling back the life of his son… his only son Isaac.  Unlike some who expound on Abraham’s cheerful obedience, rising up promptly and early to fulfill God’s commands, I am human enough to believe that Abraham agonized deeply that night.  I think a lot of questions churned in his mind and threatened his faith in a God who had only began to fulfill that precious promise that had made up his whole life… his whole long life!  I believe faith was so established in his heart that he knew he WOULD obey God, but he didn’t know how he COULD.  What tears and sighs and anguished cries must have risen from Abraham’s heart as he stood before his peacefully sleeping son after a long sleepless night himself.  How he must have begged God to tell him he had heard wrong.  How could God do this?  Maybe he even felt angry and wondered how God could give a promise, and place a darling son in his arms to love, and then tear it away so ruthlessly.  In essence, Abraham’s life had consisted of faith without sight in that promise.  He had felt the freedom to wrap his own heart tightly around  Isaac from the day of his birth, and pour every effort into teaching his son about the God who created him for a beautiful purpose.  Now God was asking him to willingly surrender every dream along with incredible love for his son… surrender all that to give him over to death.  That didn’t make one bit of sense!

Abraham must have believed that God was bigger than his own ability to think and reason.  He had to.  He had to have a faith that reached beyond seeing and feeling that what he was doing was right.  Rather, it looked wrong, for himself, for Isaac, and for the future generations that God had promised.  But he chose to believe God.  I don’t believe he FELT like believing.  I think he chose, and I think he wrestled with his feelings all the way to the altar.  I wonder if he might have wished to end his own life instead of Isaac’s.  But he chose to believe God.  I think he felt numb as he walked beside his little son, holding his hand… the hand he was leading to death.  I believe his spirit groaned within him as the sunshine and shadows danced on Isaac’s forehead.  His heart wrenched when Isaac’s trusting eyes gazed into his and he asked, "Where is the lamb?"  Yet he forced the eyes of his soul to look back at the heart of God, and believe against all odds.

What must have passed through his mind as he stood before that altar, gazing on the face of his son.  Surely there was pain and anguish reflected in that gaze… "Father, why?"  There must have been tears pouring down both of their cheeks.  Abraham must have fought an incredible urge to snatch his weeping son off the altar and run away from a God who kills.  It would have been one thing to give his son to God alive, but to be the means of death to his own precious son who did not begin to understand God’s purpose, and who lay before him crying and pleading for mercy… that was almost too much for a human heart to bear.  But he chose to believe God.  He obeyed.

At the end of that day… what must Abraham have thought about God? Furthermore, what must Isaac have thought about God, OR his father?

I leave you to ponder.

• People are often unreasonable and self-centered.  Forgive them anyway.
• If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives.  Be kind anyway.
• If you are honest, people may cheat you.  Be honest anyway.
• If you find happiness, people may be jealous.  Be happy anyway.
• The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow.  Do good anyway.
• Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough.  Give your best anyway.
• For you see, in the end, it is between you and Him. 
• It was never between you and them anyway.

-mother teresa

“For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”  Have you ever really noticed the end of that verse?  We often quote it, but don’t often get past the first line. 

I am still sitting in rather speechless awe of God.  He has been doing some amazing things in my heart through a lot of different circumstances.  He has roused my heart in a greater way this year than ever before probably, to take a closer look at the heart of Christ.  He keeps confirming to me what He has been trying to teach my slow-learning heart.  That is the truth that His heart is full of compassion and love like we cannot fathom.  He has come to my heart in the quiet, convincing way that He always does, and gently told me that He wants to heal those old wounds that I buried without knowing it.  He has used so many people and circumstances to stir my heart and opened up the wells of tears that I had no idea were still deep inside my heart.  He released me from a spirit of fear that I carried with me in relationships … fear of hurting people, fear of losing relationships.  I didn’t know it was there.  He gave me freedom from a deep sense of failure that I didn’t know was there.  And the release has entered so many, many areas of my life that I still feel stunned some days.  It’s like having your heart put to rest in a new and beautiful way.  It’s got to be a little like Heaven. REST.  

I am so in awe of God.  I hope I will never lose the reverence I feel for Him.  His love is different than we often realize.  His love is the kind that quietly and emphatically reaches our hearts in a way that we cannot doubt Him.  His work is a thorough work that could never be manufactured by another.  His grace is overwhelming.  His gentleness compels us to love Him.  His words are quiet, and they come to us when our hearts are still before Him, waiting for Him, and even when they are weeping out the unknown issues within.  He causes us to turn away from ourselves and He speaks life into the ashes of our pain.  Where the light of His Spirit shines, the darkness must flee. 

 But it’s the way He comes that amazes me so much … People, we need to get a hold of God and let Him teach us how to love.  He is so personal.  How He loves each of us and understands us. 

Thank-you, Lord.  You’ve got yourself a servant for life, by Your Grace alone.  You have shown me how little I know my own heart … how little any of us know our own hearts.  Oh, God, let us walk humbly in your Presence.  Praise be to God.

  

“It is when we realize our oneness with Christ in death and in resurrection, that prayer becomes the marvelous force that we find it was in the life of the Saviour; the invincible dynamic that reveals itself to be in the book of Acts; and the ineffable experience of the great saints of the ages.  It is then that our spirits, liberated by the power of the Cross from the fleshly and the soulish entanglements, ‘mount up on wings as eagles’.  It is then that communion with the infinitely adorable One Who inhabiteth Eternity, comes spontaneously and naturally to its fullest expression.  It is then that the injunction: ‘Pray without ceasing’, ceases to be an unintelligible command; for the spirit released from the thralldom of the ‘flesh-life’, and freed from all Satanic oppression by an appropriation of the full benefits of the Calvary victory, rises to take its place with Christ in the Heavenlies where prayer is the coninuous in-breathing of the life of God, which it cannot be until it is freed from all selfish ingredients, becomes at times a groaning which is unutterable, and which does not fail to move mountains, and achieve the impossible.  It is then that prayer becomes a wordking out of the will of God and therefore, must prevail be the cifficulties what they may be, however staggering the problem, however great the need.  It is then that the great desparity between what the Master said that prayer would accomplish, and the miserable caricature that it is in the actual practices of millions, is removed, and prayer blossoms out in all the glory of its true nature.”   F.J. Huegel

These thoughts have challenged and broken my heart today.  God is good.  He answers our prayers for brokeness. 

“Too many people underestimate the power of listening and prayer.  Listening to me builds trust. When I ask you to listen to me and you start giving advice, you have not done what is most needed and most helpful. Please listen—and pray. When I ask you to listen to me and you begin to tell me why I shouldn’t feel the way I feel, you have trespassed holy ground. You have not walked in my shoes. Please listen—and pray. When I ask you to listen to me and you feel you have to do something to solve my problems, you have interfered in a holy process, strange as that may seem. Please listen—and pray. All I ask is that you listen. Not talk or do—just listen. When you do something for me that God and I need to do, you contribute to my fear and feelings of inadequacy. Please listen—and pray. When you accept as a simple fact that I do feel what I feel, no matter how irrational, then I can quit trying to convince you and begin to be healed by the Spirit of God. Please listen—and pray. Remember, these are holy, epiphanic moments of the soul. So please listen and just hear me. If you want to talk, wait a minute for your turn—and I’ll listen to you.—Anonymous

Lord, thank you for the trials that bring me to brokenness and press me in to You. Please give me eyes to see, ears to hear and a heart to understand your ways that I might turn and be healed. Unless you do, I cannot repent in brokenness. Thank you for the gift of holy moments and healing tears that brings me to your feet in brokenness—that makes room for your grace to forgive, comfort, heal, deliver and transform me—that makes room for more of you in my life. Continue to pour out your Holy Spirit upon me that I might be free to worship and serve you in greater purity of spirit and truth. In your Name, Jesus. Amen.”