Posts tagged relationship with God

13 February 2010

When I woke this morning, my mind was really whirling, and I felt like I was totally in the middle of this huge storm with stuff flying all around me… and then I said, “Dear Papa…” and instantly I was in this circle of perfect calm! I could still feel the storm swirling all around me (and actually see it in the dream I was having just before I woke), but there was this perfect stillness in the small circle where I stood, and my mind just stopped whirling and my heart beat slowed right down….

And I was in a spot of total peace and calm and rest – with YOU!!!! (I haven’t had a lot of calm this week, Papa. It has been really busy… and kind of stressful, especially related to work… and I have to admit I haven’t taken the time to just sit back, and spend focused time relaxing in Your Presence.

Here’s an interesting thing: I think I have felt that “focused” time in Your Presence “should” be “redeemed time” in which I study hard, pray a lot, write hard, listen hard… but maybe I am missing something important:

- Your rest!
- Your peace!
- Allowing You to renew my strength!
- Enjoying YOU!

“Come unto Me, all you are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest… for My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” (Matthew 11:27)

(Thank You, Papa! I see! In my eagerness to serve You, and to serve people, too – I’ve been depending upon myself more and more, and forgetting that it is really all YOUR work. No wonder I’ve been tired, and had non-stop dreams, and felt sick to my stomach, and so on – I have stepped out of YOUR arms, out from under Your wings, and have gotten swept into the storm! Please forgive me!

I see how absolutely essential it is to purposefully not only “practice Your presence” all the time, but to daily set aside time to clear my mind and heart – and body … [I see! That last part relates to fasting, doesn’t it – and healthy eating and healthy exercise, too, doesn’t it?!?! Wow! Cool! ?)

And I see how essential it is to just sit at Your feet like Mary – who did the “better thing” … it’s so easy to get caught up in the “serving” and become a Martha … teach Me, Lord, to sit at Your feet! Please! Amen!

Thank You.

31 January 2010

Prov 9:10 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
Jer 9:23 Thus says the LORD, let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches; 24 but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD who exercises lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things,” declares the LORD.

Yes! Our “pride,” our “boasting” is, must be, in the LORD alone!

30 January 2010

The last couple nights I’ve been dreaming a lot, unsettling dreams. Anyway, I woke up early this morning from yet another dream, and I was really tired. I didn’t want to wake up and get up at all, and I even prayed that You would help me get some peaceful sleep. But at first I couldn’t sleep, and so I figured I’d try praying a bit, but instead of sitting up and turning on the light, I stayed snuggled down in my warm, comfy bed in the dark, and of course I couldn’t focus, and my mind just wandered. Finally, I did fall back asleep, right into yet another unsettling dream – one in which I dreamed I was sleeping and dreaming! And in that dream an alarm clock woke me up – and I realized that You were waking me, calling me to time with You – so I really woke up, sat up and turned on the light – and here I am!

(It was amazingly clear how I knew in my dream-within-a-dream that the alarm ringing was certainly from You! And another thing – I knew, even in the inside-dream, that the alarm ringing was itself part of the dream, not from a “real” alarm clock!).

Well, I’m wide awake now! Thank You! To Your word – Oh dear God, please speak to my spirit by Your Spirit, and teach me Your words, give me Your understanding and knowledge and wisdom, and oh dear God, make it a real, live, active part of my life – please draw me into ever closer, active, walking relationship with You – truly knowing You, loving You, obeying You, worshiping and glorifying You!

December 24, 2009
More Christmas eve musings!
My friend wrote… “I have had some real measure of victory by sleeping better. For this I thank God but last night was a throwback to the old sleepless me. As the hours wearily ticked by, the stabs of fear, the invitations to worry crept from the unconscious to the conscious and…you know the story I’m sure. Amid all this I knew of the ’secret place’ of His presence but could not, amid all the distortion find my way there. But, you know, the ‘theory is sound’. We are right about what we know of His healing presence and, even though we fail in our attempts, let’s keep on trying as we cry out for the grace actually to get it done. Let’s never give up until we can make the journey predictable from chaos to peace.”

And I replied: The enemy and our old flesh really tries to get those “throwbacks” going! For quite a long while everything seems to have been going so smoothly in my life (well, compared to the past… although, to be honest, a lot of it is not that life is really so smooth, but that I have been resting in the love of Jesus, now that I know it is REAL!!!)… in fact, I’ve sometimes been wondering if I’m “being set up for something” or if this is a time of “peace before the storm,” and also wondering how long things can go on restfully like this… and then when I start thinking that way, after a bit I realize that the enemy is sitting on my shoulder whispering those things in my ear, and then mostly I’ve just smiled, and sat back and rested again…

But the other day our little old car (which will turn 20 this new year!) started riding really rough. Hubby thought it was low on tranny fluid. Usually he’ll carefully check how much there is, and then carefully pour in just the right amount, but it was so cold out that he just poured the whole can in. But the car still wasn’t working properly, so we got it checked out, and it was the alternator (which we’ve known is going for a long time). So we had to get a new one, plus a good tune up – almost $600 right before Christmas … and then it still seemed like the transmission wasn’t working right.

And all of a sudden all the old “panic” rushed in… and I was thinking, “Oh no, the storm has come!” Just like the old days, I felt sick to my stomach, and dizzy, and hyper-panicky… but once again I recognized where that voice and those feelings were coming from… and I prayed and really “tried” to turn it all over to Papa, told Him whatever HIS plans for our car (and finances…) were, it’s fine because I know He does have everything under control and so on… Well, I was telling Him that, and I calmed down a little bit, but still feeling kind of sick… felt like I was maybe just “psyching myself” rather than really trusting God and resting in Him… well, the voice on my shoulder was telling me that… anyway, that night I kept waking up, and having bad dreams, and tossing… like I used to… a lot (I used to think I had a lot of troubles… now I look back, and while I know life often hasn’t been easy, I sure wonder how much of the trouble was me worrying… an awful lot, I’m pretty sure!).

Anyway, in the morning hubby took the car back to the garage (both of us thinking, oh boy, maybe it needs a new tranny… they are so expensive… maybe we should just take the poor old car off the road… what do You want, Father? …. Etc etc etc), while I went to work. About an hour later he drops in at my work… and tells me, with a grin, “There was just too much tranny fluid, so they pumped some of it out, and now it runs like a charm! And they didn’t charge me!” Of course instantly my sick stomach was cured, and the panicky butterflies were gone, and I was laughing.

But it did kind of disturb me, after all the restful peace and love that Father has showered on me over and over and over, it disturbed me how easily I panicked, and how much I listened to those voices, and how I found “myself trying to trust” instead of just resting in Him…. How does that happen? Do you find yourself second-guessing yourself, like asking yourself, “Have I not been reading the word/ praying/ worshiping/ working/ whatever enough? Have I been wandering from God? … Am I not good enough? …” Boy, those old voices seem to start clamoring…

December 24, 2009 Christmas eve

Notes from an email I wrote this evening, home alone! …
Going back over things you wrote from a while ago… Something to do when I’m “alone” on Christmas eve… Peter and Lionel both working! Wouldn’t it be lovely to be walking along a wild and lonely west coast beach this Christmas? Well, maybe another Christmas, eh… There are many good things here, and mostly I am happy… funny how Christmas, when we should be most joyful, is a time that somehow reawakens disappointments, eh…. I feel silly to be disappointed when I KNOW that God’s ways (beyond our understanding…) are better than ours. Well, self, buck up! It really is a small thing, staying here… ?
My friend wrote: “There are few feelings so sweet as relief from guilt. What ‘a deal’ God’s forgiveness is! The beneficiary receives full pardon from the appalling,unpayable debt of his sins and walks free to start a new life without the unbearable burden. Jesus, viewing from His cross His unrepentant and pre-meditated killers, prayed, “Father forgive them.” He then declared “Paid in full!” (He was referring to the Hebrew practice of a redeeming relative purchasing a slave back from his indebtedness with the full price of his debt.) Nor was He adding any works to the bargain – not even Bible reading, praying or ‘going to church’; the pronouncement was His to give freely so He did. Read Romans 4:4-8 again and you’ll see it explained by Paul who had been forgiven for an enormous load of dept himself. There are no religions that offer anything even close to this; they offer works and more works. Futile works. Wearisome works. But Jesus cried that we get off ’scott free’ because He did all the work. He Who was both God and man had the right to forgive all and He exercised it.”
I responded: For years it seemed like I “could not forgive” certain people, “no matter how hard I tried.” And now… now it seems incredible to me that people hold unforgiveness in their hearts… A total change… and I believe it is because I finally came to the understanding that JESUS LOVES ME!!! without reserve! And has forgiven me completely… without any “effort” on my part… There is nothing I can do to make Him love me more, nothing I can do to make Him love me less!!! … And when that understanding finally broke through, it seems to me that now I can also forgive others in turn, since He HAS forgiven me!!!!
Well, that’s got me smiling!!! Even without wild, lonely beaches!!!! ?
My friend wrote: “But understand what forgiveness is NOT. It does not deny the outrage committed. It does not excuse the offender. Forgiveness does not forget the wrong because some wrong is unforgettable. It does not demand that we trust the treacherous while they persist in their treachery. Forgiveness does not pretend the offense did not happen, or that nothing is wrong. It is not mere healing though the passage of time. Forgiveness decides and declares, “I will not hold the offenders in my debt, nor will I fix blame on them. I will remove my own judgment, I release them to God who alone is the judge.”
And I replied: Exactly. What a relief to rest in His love… and in consequence to long for others (even those who I once found “unforgiveable”!!!) to find that same rest, that same Love!!!
My friend wrote: “It is no longer ours to judge; only to trust in His perfect sacrifice, then to forgive, to release the captives of guilt, to break the bonds of fear. The Father sent Jesus into the world to bear its shame, to accept its blame, to cry its forgiveness. He will take care of the judgment; it is not ours to bear. As with Steven, He sends us forth with the privilege and power of forgiveness. Judgment belongs to God.”
And I answered: Yes, yes, yes! What an amazing Christmas message. Peace on earth!!!