Yielding

I have always, always struggled in my relationship with God. That is not to say that I have struggled to live a moral life, but I have struggled to relate to God properly. I can understand the older brother’s perspective in Jesus’ parable about the prodigal son. During my teen years, I received a couple of prophetic words that instructed me to stop striving, to stop laboring. It never made sense to me. What does “not striving” look like, practically speaking?

Over the years, I have learned to rest a little more in God, but it is still a largely unresolved area for me. Last week, God gave me a picture of what he is looking for. I was asking him how to better align with him or something to that affect. Immediately, I saw a mental picture of a railroad.

This is what it meant to me: I get to wait on God in the same way that I would wait on a train. He is stronger than me, and he wants to carry the loads of my life. He has promised me things, and like the rail cars that seem to stretch out into the distant horizon, what he has promised will move forward and come to past in his timing.

Words that Wound

I have been reading Journal of the Unknown Prophet. One of its prophetic words talks about how the enemy uses us to hurt each other when we give into the urge to defend ourselves. We seek to save our life by exposing the error of others and in doing so, we lose the life that God wants us to have. This particular message deeply resonated with me.

As that word sank deep into my spirit, I had two troubling dreams that sharpened the focus. I have never considered myself to be a gossip, but I do find myself complaining about others when their expectations seem excessive. Many times, I have grumbled aloud about coworkers who needed more than what I felt that I could reasonably provide. I know that it is wrong, and my response is usually to reassure myself that it could be worse and to commit to trying harder.

A week ago, I dreamed two dreams over the course of two nights. In the first, someone held down another man. As they did, I stabbed him through the heart. I was not angry about it. In fact, it felt like an inconvenient thing that had to be taken care of. Later in that dream, I had doubts about what I had done. A brother in Christ reassured me that it was the right thing to do. He said that it was OK because it was “self-defense”.

The next night, I dreamed that there was small but annoying alligator in my neighborhood. I moved him to someone else’s neighborhood. Other time, the alligator killed everyone in the other neighborhood. It was only later that I began to realize the gravity of what I had done. I went back to check on the alligator. I was careful, but he surprised me. He had grown from a small creature into one larger than me. Now, he wanted to eat me. I left the dream knowing the enemy wants to use me to hurt other people and then to hurt me too.

I was deeply troubled by these dreams. The first dream showed me that my “little sin” of complaining about others was spiritual murder. The second demonstrated with crystal clarity the way that a small habit of sharp remarks could devour others and grow into a monster that would eat me alive. To see myself this way is less than flattering and deflates the confidence of self-improvement.

Out of these dreams, I am coming to understand that I cannot change myself but neither can I treat lightly this sin of words that wound. I am getting a glimpse of why we need Jesus. He did not come just to save us from Hell. He came to save us from sin. I cringe to think how gross my own iniquity is before God….and from this, I find hope: Jesus came to remove me from all unrighteousness. He promises that as I tell the truth about how he sees my sin, he will cleanse from all unrighteousness.

Seasonal Visions

There was a season in which my family met with a small Sunday morning church group. We utilized a projector for our worship service. Eventually, the church shrunk and dispersed. We inherited the projector to use for both soaking worship and entertainment. The projector bulb burned out after many hours of use. Last night, I dreamed about the projector.

In my dream, someone came looking for the projector. They wanted to use it again for church services. I explained that the bulb had died. When I searched for the unit itself, it was found to have been recalled and removed from our reach.

“Moses My servant is dead. Now therefore, arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them—the children of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given you, as I said to Moses...” – Joshua 1:2-3

The gifts and callings of God are without recall, but God releases and later recalls seasonal visions. Visions provide the strategy for parts of the journey, and as such, they are transient. My dream reminded me of visions that have served their purpose and then burned out. The vision of God did not fail, but rather, it fulfilled its intended purpose. When a vision has reached its end of life, we are left waiting for the next step to take. It can be tempting to put the old vision back into service, but we cannot go back. Each vision is a foundation for the upcoming vision.

My desire is to trust God to impart the vision for this next season. My heart wants to go back and find comfort in what used to work, but that vision is dead now. It is time to arise and cross into a new land. The promises of God are ahead of me, and he will be faithful to continue what he has begun in my life.

Seek First

Everything that Jesus said and everything written in the Word is subject to the filters that we possess. I was thinking about Matthew 6:33 this morning, “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” This verse requires a contextual understanding and an emotional wholeness to be properly received.

I treasure rules because rules guarantee outcomes. I gravitate toward principles in the Word and in the Christian walk because they help to predict what is coming next. Many books have been sold because they were rich in the study of biblical principles. I cannot speak for others, but much of my love of rules and principles is centered in distrust. Internally, I have used these abstractions to force God to be predictable.

The context of Matthew 6 is that our greater reward is yet to come, and that we are deeply loved right now. Jesus came to set us free from living for the here and now so that we could love God and others without being consumed by our own needs. At this point in my life, this is a hard truth for me. I know that Jesus’ character is being formed in me, and yet, I do not trust God the way that I should. I am growing convinced though I will not accomplish anything of lasting value except that I am willing to die to my way of getting it.

I am still learning how to walk this out. This is a heart thing. It is not a matter of having no desires or no needs. It is not a matter of trading obedience for provision. It is a relational trust that once fully developed will allow me to suffer gracefully and to love those who do not understand me. Such an outcome is daunting to consider, but I draw encouragement from Peter. Over time, God grew Peter from self-sufficiency to become the shepherd that he was called to be. I know that God can do the same for me.

Highlighting

Over the years, I have learned that God wants to speak to us in different ways. I grew up being taught that the Holy Spirit will cause verses to stand out, to be highlighted when we read the Bible. That is quite true, and I have experienced it. For me, it has expanded beyond time spent in the Word. The Holy Spirit will also highlight everyday objects and events.

One particular day about year or so ago, I was doing something very common and maybe a little bit boring. I was driving around trying to get the best deal that I could on gas for the car. It is my desire to be a good steward of what God has given my family, so I shop for deals. In this case, I had intended to get gas at a particular station, but the one nearest me was only two cents more a gallon. As I drove into the station, the sign caught my attention. The price displayed was $3.35 and the time was 3:34. That meant that I was there at the exact time so as to make my time and my fill up price the same by the time that I pumped gas. I believe that the Holy Spirit was speaking to me about a coming season.

Even in the place where we have done our best to honor God, there is a release of grace coming to us. The number three is about divine fullness. In our humanity, we can never be enough, but God is able to complete what is lacking in us. The number five is about grace and abundance. God is taking us into a place that we will not recognize until we step into it, and we will be arrive exactly when we are supposed to be there. It is a season where God will cause us to become perfected and made complete. It will be followed by a release of his grace and abundance. God is going fill us up for the next leg of our journey with him.

God is always speaking, but we miss much of what he is saying because we only expect him to speak at certain times and in certain ways. This week, be open to hearing God in new ways.

The Beauty of Shades and Variations

 We are a society that thrives on finding the right answers. On any given topic, you might be hopelessly confused, searching for perfection, or an expert at it now. For as long as I can remember, I have had a hunger for perfection. This drive has inspired others and yet, it can be exhausting. The danger of seeking “perfect” is that it does not actually exist. 

“To everything there is a season, and a time for every matter or purpose under heaven” - Ecclesiastes 3:1 (AMP)

This morning as I asked God for his advice about my life, I saw leaves turning colors and falling from a tree. Perfection is measured and often has a stated goal. Life is different. It is organic and ever changing. When I think of the many shades and variations of a tree in the fall, I could take one of two approaches: I could say that it is a completely disorganized mess, or I could embrace the beauty of it. With God’s help, I choose to embrace the precious chaos of life and to appreciate its imperfections.