39

April 7, and the temperature is 39F.  61F in the house.  I wanted to stay in the comforter all day.

I think I will.  I will stay in The Comforter.

One real comfort.  One real source of comfort.  One place to find satisfaction...and He DOES NOT MIND.

You don't tug on Superman's cape, but Our Father does not mind at all.  In fact he encourages it.  One of his favorite stories is about a woman who tugged on his cape and was instantly healed from a chronic debilitating disease.  

He had the psalmist write that there is one human desire that has a place above all others.  The ONE THING of Psalm 24:7.  One thing have I desired...You.  To stare in awe.  To weep at your beauty.  To be speechless in the face of your grace.  Dumbfounded...at the most fundamental level, unable and unwilling to say a thing because all expression is expressed in You.

I will stay in You today, Father.  Comfort and heal me.  Be glorified in us today.  Manifest your Kingdom in and through your bride today.  Rest your presence in great weight on the places where we call upon your Name today.  Shekinah Chabod.

Hunger

Funny hunger today.  Lots of soul in there.  Soul, shut up and sit down.  It is okay.

I guess the beyond will look like the fullness of OKAY.  Where we never forget that it is okay.  Where we never doubt that it is okay.  Where we can not hear the whispers that challenge the truth.  Where ever scar in the emotions is erased, where every habit of self protection and self rescue and self medication has been replaced with "no room for anything but awe."

I want more awe now so I have less doubt and fear.  So I have less  hunger that is not about fuel for this body, and rather is about self care.  Help me make the link, the connection.  I want hunger at the wrong time to tell me that my circumstances have poked a sore spot in my soul.  So I can immediately grab it and run toward the Throne with it, calling out for my big brother Jesus to put his hands on it.

Thanks, Dad.  Help me grab and go.

Good Grace

Some days are easier than others. Difference now is that the days are not easier because the circumstances are easier, but rather because I remember to stay in the embrace of grace, and let myself be carried through upon the everlasting arms of love. It is getting easier to love, as the habits of expecting to love, regardless of the response, are daily formed and reinforced. I expect days when, on my own, it would be much harder to love. But the supply of love is so infinitely large.

I am reminded of how much I could have used this in the past. But a big part of expecting to love now exists in me because I did not have it then. God, it was such a barren existence. The dryness of it made me thirsty for real living water.

The pleasure of the writing, now, is that the memory of my dry hard ground still hurts. And so it tells me that my soul is still in need of healing. Help me, Papa to forgive and heal. Help me to release the hurts. Make me more and more like Christ.

Bop

Gonna try something different tonight. Listening to Joe Pass radio on Pandora. Gonna see what I can write while bopping.

Can't do it.

There is real rest in the silence. The silence does not compel Christ to fill the void. The persistent silence is plenty and more than enough. The silence does not compel me to fill the void or to find a social setting so there is people noise and people interaction. Such rest, to test and know that I have no urge, no need to fill the silence of God. It is an invitation to rest and seek the end of it.

Father, thank You for healing the noise in my head.

Knowing

Certainty. Knowing. Now I understand why people do not get it when we say we are in love with Jesus.

They have been in love. They have been lost in that brainless euphoria and still did not have certainty. Knowing was absent. Especially if they had been in love before. They know it is a drug that wears off. Great drug, though. Great drug. But just a drug.

I am not in love with Jesus. It is a poor, inaccurate way of expressing this Christian faith. Better, much better to say, that I am home in Christ. Every answer is in Him. Everything missing is found in this Life. Everything broken is restored in Christ. Everything that needs to be known to make me fully alive and free is right here and will never change. I know.

Father, You have done it. And we thank you. What a place to rest and heal.

Rooms

http://books.google.com/books?id=42EHtyyGva8C&printsec=frontcover&dq=rubart+rooms&source=bl&ots=fpgCu5IdDp&sig=co9vgn8UrF7BdjtB246CisWR3dQ&hl=en&ei=KRcYTZyOOcT58AahzKHsDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f=false

My boy gave me a copy of this book, Rooms, for Christmas, and I read it today.
It is Christian literature and describes a man's path to spiritual liberty and wholeness in Christ. The protagonist turned away from Christ in his teens and twenties, like so many of us did. This is the fictional dramatic telling of one man's return to Christ.

If any of this description resonates with you or describes someone who is not walking in Christian liberty, I recommend this anointed book. The author is James Rubart.

Agape

The God whose name is Love, infinite. There is no end to the Agape that He is. He is not eros or phileo. He is the Love that loves the lost and broken, the frightened and hurt, the sick and the poor.

I was really challenged this morning, listening to Morning Edition talk about the people who have found their home with Harry Potter. They came around to mentioning an anthem that credited their victory to love. I had to think about that.

See, I thought that agape only belongs to the Redeemed of Christ. and that the love that the lost had was not from the supernatural fountain, from the cleft rock in the wilderness. Now I am wondering. Certainly, no one is harmed by true love. And this love through lost humanity is always manifest as selflessly as possible in the ways Love manifest in Jesus.

So, Father, help me. Cleanse my vision. Forgive me for judging and despising those who long to love with pure supernatural love without surrendering their vessels for cleansing with Your Blood. Help me to acknowledge Your Love in lost children. Help me to receive Your Love and pour it out into every life I encounter.

Coffee

In America, for the last ten years or so, coffee is the Christian drug. It is the acceptable drug.

I was giving some thought to how I would describe myself. I was reading Jo's facebook info, and she went to some length, with carefully chosen words, to help her readers understand where she was coming from. I realized that I had not crafted the same high value description, and I was stirred to that kind of thought.

The next thing that came to the surface is that I would say that I am a recovering addict. (It just took me five tries to correctly spell recovering, only one for addict. Hmmm) And not coffee. I have not forsaken coffee. Every seed bearing tree, you know.

I am recovering from addiction to my self. I would not be recovering if I did not have this Holy Wild in which to wander, clinging to my King. Born, I said within moments, "I want." In response, I received. So I tried again, for something else for me. And I received. Later, when I expressed my desire and did not receive, I learned to satisfy myself. It is not all bad. It just defines our humanity, without God. A need or want is perceived. We do what we need to to get satisfaction.

And there is a great defining moment. Getting satisfaction. Being satisfied. So long as I need to get satisfaction, I am feeding my soul to balm the aching places. I am self medicating, self comforting, self sheltering, self embracing. Now being satisfied is the entire difference. Being satisfied means that I am transformed. Satisfied is who I am. My needs are met and the desires of my heart do not originate in my aching, broken soul.

The habits of self care run very deep. The old path is a rut worn so deep that there was no self rescue available. Rescue was available, but accepting it required at least a moment of forsaking my effort.

The habits of self care run very deep. I am recovering. Just like the twelve-steppers who will never say that they are recovered, I will agree. I fall into the rut every day. Sometimes I stay there, immediately finding my hands on their old worn out tools, sure for a while that I will be able to get satisfaction on my own. My shepherd stands there patiently, not even clearing His throat to remind me that I need Him.

Then I realize where I am and what I am trying to do...look up...and reach up.

Thank You, Lord. You are Faithful and True. You restore my soul. You make me satisfied.

He Restores My Soul

He Restores My Soul.

My unrestored soul is making lots of noise. Heart ache. At a time like this, it makes no difference how good or bad my day was.

So the promise is, that there is a resting place for and from this heart ache. All I have to do is turn toward my place of refuge. I will find not just relief there, but my healing as well.

Wow. There it is. Just like that.

Thank you, Father for your faithfulness.

Call on the Name

I saw my boy do the only thing he could do tonight. He needed to do something, there was nothing in the natural he could do, so he did what he has been taught. He called on the name of Jesus.

When he did that, he walked out into the wilderness and came back leaning on the arm of his Beloved. It is that simple.

I know that in the world of rationality, it does not "compute." It is not supposed to. If it made sense to humans, it would be a human thing. The thing is, when a human runs out of things that can be explained, they have nowhere to turn.

What is really joyous for me is that calling on the supernatural is not a place to turn in time of need. It is the normal place of abiding. It is the trusting place where all of the Christian spiritual life rests. My boy did not go panicking, desperate for an answer to a crisis. He just externalized the conversation that his spirit and the Spirit were already having.

Thank you, Father for this perfect place you have made, full of healing, wisdom, peace, joy, love, patience, goodness, kindness, longsuffering. Like a hot mineral spring where all of the various helpful minerals just soak into the pores and become part of the soaker. And thank you for my boy.

Hope Springs Eternal

Hope Springs. What a great place to get refreshed. I have yet to say that I am thirsty and not be guided to Hope.

The Wild of God is not a place with a Mc Donalds or a Starbucks on every corner. On purpose, there are no places of provision, refreshing, healing, strength here that are not God. I get taught here that I never lack for a place to turn, and that every place I turn can be trusted absolutely.

I needed simple wisdom for the last hour. No deep thing, but at the same time an opportunity for Godliness to be permitted to shine through me. Just a simple turn to the Spirit, and perfect answers come.

Living in the Spirit of God on purpose is going to produce fruit. Father, show me where my roots need to reach today.