Mean Pinball

Listening to Pandora.

I am here to write. Joanne said to just write is a success secret.
In this context, to just pray is the success secret.

I do not need to say anything. I need to listen to the Spirit and say what I hear.

We need to be provoked by the Spirit to rest ever more completely upon the trustworthy King.
I know this is true for several reasons, but the important reason at the moment is that it is entirely counter-rational and entirely intuitive. Now that is not the same as finding something irrational to do and calling it a mission from God. But if it is a mission from God, it will not make sense to the rational mind.

The opposing force is the being-restored soul. Habits of thought, feeling and action make for easy decisions that require no stillness and listening and obeying and trusting. Just rut walking.

The deeper the work of restoration, the greater the need of Christlikeness in the moment, the greater the shaking. It can feel...like anything, as long as how it feels can oppose the truth.

This is a dangerous God, fundamentally opposed to my plans and habits.

Father have mercy on us. We are not able to walk in your way without mercy that we will never be able to deserve. Yet once we have put our hand to your plow, we must walk in your way. No Spots, No Wrinkles. My cry tonight. Not wealthy, Not witty, Not even wise. One Bride. One Spotless Bride.

Demanding

This is the only demanding link on my favorites bar. And even here I can even come and look at my stats, as they are. Even facebook, with all of its potential for receiving output does not demand it like the blogger does.

But you know, the demand is only perceived, not real.

What if the demand was a celebration of opportunity? If I could see the end and rejoice in the outcome. If I could see the process and rejoice in the inflow of the Spirit that makes the writing possible.

Then I think about other bloggers, especially ones who have subscribers. Why are they writing? How much do they feel a demand that they think they can not satisfy? Who are they writing for?

All of this speaks into what I am doing here. The one thing I know is that all of this is prayer. It even usually transforms into a form of prayer by the end of the post. That is what puts a lie to the demand. I am coming here to meet with my Father. To sit and listen, and to speak sometimes. There is no demand in our sitting. He does not need anything from me. Everything I really need is completely satisfied in my entering, sitting, listening and speaking.

So the demand is a lie of my little broken soul. I will fail to succeed, it says. Pants on fire.

Father, so many lies and so many lie believers. So much truth and so many truth believers. Help us shine for you today. Help us reflect your truth.

Break on through

How much does feeling count? Especially when knowing is available, and when knowing contradicts feeling?

Just asking that question made feeling quieter.

I had gotten to leaning on feeling, depending on it as a reference. In that case, even physical pain is a strong thing and can become an anchoring place.

The only problem is that any feeling is a false anchor. Relying on feeling when there is nothing else seems so right. Relying on feeling when there is so much more is an entirely different thing.

Knowing God, even just a little bit, takes away the supreme position of feeling. The soul can no longer dominate. At that moment, the true head of the man, his own spirit, is quickened and steps back up to headship. I can choose to give over to my soul, but I do not ever have to again.

I am made alive again my the Spirit of God. My spirit is quickened, reborn, within me. I arise again to purpose and passion. Spirit alive makes body alive less relevant. Old habits die hard, but loosed is better than bound. Ain't no body gonna hold my spirit down. I will arise and go to my Father.

Father, the clear thing for me tonight is that the only way I am going to, or can, serve any purpose, establish any value, is through truly living. Know spirit, know living.

Stable and Fixed

Disturbing. Applying the adjective gives it power to disturb. Where nothing has the power to disturb except the Holy One. Everything which can be shaken will be shaken. Everything built by the hand of man, everything built upon the foundations of this world can be shaken and will be shaken down. So what is built upon the Rock will stand.

Hunkering down. Establishing a fresh relationship with the overwhelming stability of God, the utter immovability. It helps to get very low to do that. It helps to put hands, even head down on the ground and feel the stability of God contrasted with the trembling of the earth. Meditating on the complete trustworthiness of our Father.

Pneuma moves in a way which removes even the thought of resting anything physical on her. So how then is she dependable? She is never not there. (No offense meant to those who have trouble with attributing femininity to an aspect of God.) She is never not there. The Word of God is clear that Jesus sent the Spirit of God. No word of a departure. The Spirit has taken up residence within me. There is nowhere to go apart from the Spirit of God. When I look to God Who Is Present, now that is the Spirit of God. Here. Now. Right here. Right now.

Seated in heavenly places. That is where you have placed me. Places made heavenly not by fluffy white clouds, naked baby angels and harp music, but made heavenly, NOW, by your fulfilling your own desire to be very near. Nearer than my breath. You have payed the immeasurable price so that there are no obstacles between us. And so here you are, creating my NOW reality. Thank you. It is your will that in all things I am grateful. And so, give thanks.

Mac N Cheese

I think it is time to at least start talking about Macaroni and Cheese. God help me.

My son and I were talking about religion over Chinese buffet the other day. It all came down to Mac N Cheese.

Here is how we got there. We were talking about how the teaching, or at least the talking, at a church we were attending years ago saw those who had doctrinal differences as wrong, and us as right. I can't say there was ridicule, but we did laugh at them. I mean, how could they be so wrong, and still be so convinced that we were wrong?

The analogy occurred to me. I have been telling my boy all these years that he eats his macaroni and cheese wrong. Why?, you ask. No black pepper. Can you imagine? But then, he also eschews any hint of hot sauce on his eggs. So, on two of the most important matters of life, he is clearly in need of enlightenment.

As we talked on, it occurred to me that there are lots of variations on the macncheese theme. Loose, tight, creamy, dry, simple cheese, exotic cheese, true mac, spongebob shapes, .........

Common to all? Macaroni, and Cheese. And so with the Gospel. Macaroni and Cheese. If you like goat cheese on there, good for you. I am just glad to know you, 'cause you have both founding components.

You have seen the pasta instructions some places. They offer the cook the opportunity to add some oil to the water to help avoid sticking. Well that place we were back then had to have oil. The more oil the better. Personally, I liked the oil. Still do. But there were folks there that were drinking the oil, running their cars on the oil, bathing in the oil and using the oil as an enhancement to their relationships, but they had never tasted the McNCheese.

Anyway, I am just getting started with this thing. Shoot. May end up being a book.

Father, help me understand the part of this that I need to for your glory. I just know I spoke poorly of folks who ate the good stuff, but did not eat it like me. And especially the ones who just stared at it and never ate it.

Someone To Talk To

I really needed somebody to talk to last night. I know that is what the church is for. I was not with the church. I was on the road. But that did not change the fact that I really needed someone other than me to talk to. Everything me had to say was making it worse.

Spirit God. Just there waiting for me to remember.

I suppose that is the reason people are always on their mobiles. They find their life in community. I have always wondered how anyone could have so much to talk about. Widget on the ear, always talking. Maybe as a result, it never occurred to me to call someone. The only person I call is my son. Most folks at work are part of my tribe, good to talk with, but rarely beyond News, Sports, Weather.

And it is so rare that I come to a place where I have to admit that I need help.

Spirit God. Just there waiting for me to remember.

Father, I am so grateful that Holy Spirit is real and here for me. And for the whole church. But last night, for me. I am sorry that I forget. I know that you understand me, even when I don't. Patience is your name.

I want more. I don't want just to run to you. I want to function from your presence. Thank you for understanding. Please keep me. Do not let me fall utterly.

What I am afraid of

Sometimes it takes me time to figure out what is going on. I have to look at what I am being tempted with to figure out what I am holding back from my Father. It is so easy to stay in the habits of pride. All I need is to turn to my Father with what concerns me, and he will perfect it. I can not do what will matter in the issues that I am assaulted with. I get a chance to be reminded of how small I am, and how great my Father is.

There really is a special spiritual thing about fathers and sons. And the key stories involve fathers trusting God with their sons. Father, I am tempted to worry about my son. So all the more, I surrender my Isaac to you. I trust your plan because I want to trust my plan. I need to trust you more than I need to trust my plan. All of my plans without you seemed so well reasoned until they broke under my weight and cut me. Who can compare leaning on the arm of God with leaning on the marsh reeds of Egypt. Have mercy on my son and his mother. Grant us the grace needed to bring to you the Glory that is yours. Restore my soul. I need you, Daddy.

Frustration

Frustration just may be part of the landscape.
Nope. Frustration is just a marker that there are expectations that are not founded in the Kingdom. There is a day coming when every circumstance is met with Kingdom Joy. I am just not there yet. There is so much freedom. There is so much to be had in the freedom of Kingdom living. Nothing to do but to walk in it. It is in the book. People of the book and the Spirit can find the door to walking in liberty. Healing is full there. Here. Deliverance is complete. Do you come to the Kingdom for deliverance...or do you get delivered to get to the Kingdom. You have a family right to enter into the most secret place before you are clean. Before you are delivered. You can still have your crippled feet and take your place at the Kings table.
Come on. Take it.

Help me, Father. There is so much to eat and so few at the table.

I was just talking with a friend. He asked me how my day was. I can not remember, but I told him that I got lots done and basically what I put my hand to prospered.

I knew that what I said was true. I just could not remember anything remarkable about the day. Maybe I have stopped looking back. What do you think?

Daddy, am I addicted to the remarkable? Or am I satiated with the sensations of listening for you in the fire and the wind and the storm?

Am I willing to be still and know You are God, without being able to talk about a sensation that validated my belief in you? How un-remarkable can I tolerate? Can I have a day full of your glory without having a glorious experience to write about? Even "plain vanilla" is still a serving of vanilla ice cream, an extraordinary treat that most humans never experience.

What is my testimony? I have heard so many say that they do not have one of those "saved from a life of..." stories. What does it break down to?

I knew I needed God with me, Emmanuel.
I learned that I could.
I did my part.
He did His.
I was with God.

Nope.

I know I need God with me. I know I need me with God.
I learned that I could be with God and God would be with me.
I do my part.
He does His part.
I am with God. I am lost in Him and have no interest in living apart from God.
All of that can be without a sensation to describe, a healing, a miracle.

So the remarkable becomes remarkable because it is extra-ordinary, outside of the ordinary.
So when being in the embrace of the God who loves you without reservation is NOT ORDINARY, it is remarkable. But when the embrace of the MOST HIGH is ORDINARY, it can still be appreciated and acknowledged, without being remarkable. "All" it calls for is a life of thanksgiving.

Thank You, Father, for loving me.

Songs in my head.

I have never talked about songs stuck in your head that somebody has not understood and agreed. It does not happen with speeches, poems, movie lines. It happens with songs. I have Seals & Crofts "Hummingbird" in my head right now. And I am enjoying it as much as the first time I ever heard it. And I am seeing images from 1975.

Songs must be so powerful.

Dad made songs and put them in our heads. He made us compatible with them and made us to make songs.

Dean Robert Evans talked about all of the years he had spent around the college age group and how the one thing they had always had was being surrounded constantly with music. Craig and I said, "Well, of course." The Dean said, "No, not of course. It goes away." How sad that was at the time. To think that days would come when we would turn off the music.

And it is not instrumentals. It is songs. Lieder. Mit WORDS. The music expresses, but not like words. It is the words and music together in our heads that sticks. It is a wonder and a delight to me. I want to know more about how and why that works. I wonder if it is my spirit singing, and my soul hears it and repeats it into my consciousness. But what does that mean then, when the song is "not entirely edifying?" Does my spirit sing bar room ditties to the Holy Spirit? I want to conclude that having any song in my heart is better than being dry, dead and songless. I have been there. I am not there now, by the very grace of God.

Father, thank You that you sing over us. Songs are vital to you, and so they are life to us. This is very good.

Good Morning

I delight in You, my God and King. All that I am and have is from you and directed unto you in praise, honor and glory. I am entirely adrift and lost without you. But I am not without you. You have placed me in Your presence, the intimate center of Your delightful Love. In Your presence is fullness of joy. Here with You, Christ Jesus, I find my purpose and the fulfillment of it. There is great sufficiency in You and I am satisfied and at rest in Your embrace. Thank You for the Blood poured out for the redemption of this glorious Body. Thank You for Your abiding Spiritual weight in our lives. Teach us some more today, revealing your Love in and through us. Convict us and admonish us for being Love misers.

Beauty

Everyone has a chance at awe and wonder. Everyone has an opportunity to look at beauty, and know that the inexplicable is on display. Not that the phenomenon can not be explained. But that the beauty can not be explained. The heart catches at the sight, sound or scent, and is held in awe of the beauty. This marks the beginning of the quest for God.

Now to have found the way home to God, the splendor never stops. With, and beyond sensation, the embrace, the rhythm, the immensity, the warmth, the enveloping, the motion, the grace of the embrace, the peace that passes understanding. The beauty of walking in the garden with Him.

Thank You, Father for the beauty of knowing, beyond feeling.

Yes

What a joyful day. A day full of Yes.

The really cool thing is the realization that it just keeps getting better. In the Kingdom, a member of the royal family, settled at home, with a place at the table, surrounded by glory, not alone, no longer Fatherless, no longer an orphan. Not going to be kicked out. Welcome to stay. Meeting new family members every day. Building for the future. Resting. Delivered. Free. With access to limitless hope.

Wow.

Happy New Year

Read something in the last day or so. Something about Ms. Winfrey and a new year meaning that we had another chance to get it right. If there was ever a failed humanist approach to life, that is it. The idea that man has what it takes, if he only gets enough opportunities to prove it to himself and the world. The idea that one day we will witness the life of a man who gets it right.

This is very attractive. We all also know that it would make him a god. We spend a lot of social energy looking for the human who will transcend his humanity and behave like a god worth proving that men have divinity in them. Society tracks the beautiful, because we know that beauty is a trait of the gods. We track the extraordinarily intelligent, the extraordinarily physically gifted, the ones born into generations of wealth and power.

They all fall. They all fail. They all fail to be worthy of worship. But so much hope was invested in them, that when the investment tanks, they become the objects of revulsion, derision. Ms. Winfrey has had to find a way to stay slim, because she becomes the failed god of her worshipers when she puts on weight.

Godhood for mortal men is very hard, and then you die.

But no matter how awful it is to be a human god, it is harder to abandon the illusion that it is possible. That is what it takes to be free, however. Just say, "I am not worthy of any measure of worship. The One who established the need to find One who is worthy of worship already revealed Himself to the whole world. I will only worship the One Who Is Worthy."

I worship You, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. You alone are worthy of all praise, honor, wisdom, authority, love, and grace. May the Name of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob receive all the Glory.

Strength in Surrender

My soul will never be strong enough to weather the storms. Thankfully, it does not need to be. My soul can shut up and rest on my spirit. My spirit is bound to His Spirit, and nothing is stronger. I am going to know what to say when. I am going to know when to be very still, and when to use my mouth to war for my corner of the Kingdom of God.

I think there is more time needed in stillness. Not sure? Well, I am going to try that as the first wise choice and see how it works. There is no pulling words back.

I want so to proudly prove my little orphan self is capable of self care. To do so, though, I have to act on my own. Father will not aid my defense of foolishness.

Father, thank you that you have clearly described and defined your self. Thank you that you have left no need for doubt. If I have doubt it is because I brought it to the party.

Satisfaction

This is Christmas Day. The thing I learned as a kid that Christmas meant was disappointment. I spent months anticipating specific Christmas gifts and not getting them. I was taught to lie in the face of disappointment. I was taught to look up from a newly unwrapped gift, look into the eyes of my Grandmother, and say, "Thank you," with a big smile.

I learned to buy my own toys. I learned that that was what money was for, and later that that was what credit cards were for. I learned that no one on this earth was able and /or willing to pay me enough attention and have the resources to buy me the toys I wanted.

When I started to buy satisfaction with credit cards, credit card interest was a tax deduction. That told me that my behavior was acceptable and desirable.

I only would stop buying new toys when I couldn't. And I was never satisfied.

I have not loved enough people enough to listen to them and find out if they are like me in that regard. I suspect, and will find out, that everyone is looking for the satisfaction of their soul. I have not listened, but have watched. What I have seen people do says that they are not satisfied.

Hardwired seeking for that which is missing. Simple. Taste and see that the Lord is good. He satisfies. This spiritual relationship meets every need. There are still places in my soul that ache for lack of satisfaction. That is not because He does not satisfy. It is only because I have failed to let Him.

Thank you, Father for Your complete provision. Put the lie to the Stones. Show them where to find satisfaction.

There is a forecast of snow for tomorrow night. We do not get much snow.

You have to go somewhere to regularly get snow. Same with rain, sun, waves, tornadoes, drought.

When the irregular shows up, local folks are in wonder. They go out to experience it, because it may never manifest there again.

The best manifestation possible is always available. Some have lived their whole lives in the presence of the Holy Spirit, and have never been introduced. They could spend the rest of time lost in wonder, but nobody told them. They know they are missing something, but...

Some have found themselves standing under the spout where the glory comes out, and have stepped out of the deluge because they have things to do. They think they will come back later.

Sometimes they do.

The Glory of God is right here. Taste and see that the Lord is good.

Father, I know that in You there is nothing missing and nothing broken. I know that I walked away after tasting of the heavenly gift. I know that others do as well. I also know that Your Love pours out, and believers are not the only receivers. Thank You for the well of living water. Thank You that your love for us never fails and never falters. Show me how surrender.

Trust God

I do not trust my self. But I trust God. That makes the entire difference.

Still too noisy. Stillness, to sit and rest, is needed. I am okay. Just have to sit here and lean.

Got to stop doing and planning to do.

http://www.bethelministries.com/LONELINESS.htm

Worshipful Devotion

I heard a man say today that his cause had to become everything to him. He said that his cause had to become the reason he slept and the reason he rose from sleep. He said that for his cause to prevail, it must also become the center of the lives of his listeners. He was calling for devotion to the cause.

The world is unbalanced without the success of his cause, so it is reasonable to live an unbalanced life to help bring the world back into equilibrium. He said that he expects his resolve in this great enterprise to significantly increase the chance of his being jailed or assassinated, so great is the power of the of the evil which he opposes.

and this man's cause is not the cause of Christ.

I met a man many years ago who had been a citizen of a country fundamentally opposed to the Gospel of Christ. As this man was personally committed to the cause of Christ, and particularly the cause of Christ for that country, his country was fundamentally opposed to him. Indeed, his country considered him insane and treated him as such, by institutionalizing him.

What is important enough to sacrifice for? Moreso, how is life worth living without something to sacrifice for. The sacrifice makes us different. Sacrifice invites transforming power. Like nothing else is able to.

We so easily aim our selves at the wrong target. Father, help your church stay full of holy oil, staying very near, able to stay lit and illuminating the target for each other and all.

A life sacrificed for a good cause is such a tremendous waste.

Christmas

The Christ Mass. Gotta learn the origins of that word Mass.

My friend Steve and I were talking about Southern colloquialisms. I had learned in Alabama about going out after work and catching a mess of brim (bream, pan fish, sunfish, bluegills.) He confirmed, as a native son of South Carolina, that a mess was enough for supper. In a broader sense, a mess of something was enough. What you needed. Could just as easily be a mess of collard greens.

To connect "mass" and "mess" in origins and meanings is a huge leap. But I like them, so I will take it.

When I stop to have some Christ, can I get a mess of Him? Can I get enough to satisfy? No doubt. Can we, around a table, get enough of Him for all of us? Been there. Again, no doubt. If every believer took one day, let's say December 25, stopped and had some Christ, would there still be enough left for an unbeliever to reach up and find complete satisfaction as well?

I believe so.

So, what I am saying then, is that Jesus is a mess. He satisfies. I knew it before Pastor Jakes said it, and I had the words for it after. He satisfies. If Oliver Twist came and asked for more, he would find his more in Christ.

Father, thank you for the banquet that is Christ. Thank you for your family gathered around the table, partaking of the richness you have made ours. Thank you that this year there will be more of us around the table than last year...and that some day every prodigal son and daughter will be home, to satisfy Your heart. Merry Christmas, Daddy.