when the burn comes, blow

Last night, I couldn't sleep. This restless mind kept me up to the wee hours but even now, after lunchtime on the next day, I don't know if it'll rest.

I don't want it to, really. I'm stirred. Whoever wants to leave the mountaintops to walk the valleys? But I know we carry the mountaintop wherever we go and so we go. And we try to write it.

Signs and wonders pass our way but it's the vessels that make me marvel. These beautiful souls surrendered to His bidding, never ceasing to amaze me.

I've been witnessing a blossom of the Body here.

But I'm not sure how to begin or where to end. There are words, but too many of them.

How do we explain the ways in which His Spirit moves? The ways in which His Spirit operates in yielded vessels, the ones dashed on the beach of Christ?

And isn't this how we know Him: that our love and unity wouldn't be from knowing one another, but from one another knowing Him? How else would a room of strangers feel like family, if not God?

The words wanted to flee, to slip away and not be bothered in the middle of night. But I wrestled them. I wanted to make one or two stand still long enough to unwedge their fullness from my heart.

I was reminded of the Body's beautiful and well-oiled parts, last night. Not an amputated gathering. Not a dismembered cast with parts on the wayside. Not a quenching of blazes and fires until only one hot coal is left to dully light.

I've seen His glory residing among the sacrifices of flesh. People, surrendered. People, open to more. People, hushed for hunger. People, quenched by liquid Fire.

I saw the burn. His heat rising among the embers of His people. And then that Wind blows and licks the Heavenly heights of His flame.

When we come open-handed for God, we may carry out a handful. But when we come open, when we say "Give me all in All and what I don't believe, help my unbelief!", who knows the fullness of that, but God?

But it takes bold faith to walk it. To bring it to one another. To fearfully encourage and bless. To cheer each onward the race before them. To lay our whole life at the altar so we may bring the Kingdom down. To stand as bizarre aliens so He alone stands in our place. To be humbled as a Jesus freak rather than preserving self and pride which quiets us when He says speak. 

When He's fully operating among believers, I feel Love, fully. What beautiful blessings of His gifts flowing down to us, individually. Ones so needed, Hallelujah. What encouragement they are!

But it's that mystery of Love by way of others which blows me away. every. single. time.

Love is that abiding fruit that keeps our feet steady.

Love and humility brings all of Christ when they are holding hands.

Oh that we'd know and seek the burn of it. May your feet find that solid ground of it, friend. And should you feel the slight warmth of it's heat, fan the flames.

"He who loves his brother abides in the light, and there is no cause for stumbling in him." 1 John 2:10

Many blessings to those who bless...and you know who you are.


 At Laura's....

  At Michelle's...

when my First-world sensibilities clash with a hurting world

We've been busy building a new home on our property the past two months. You'd think I would want to shout it from the rooftops, announce it in big, bold letters here on the blog.

But I haven't.

Instead, I struggled before we ever got started.

We prepared for years but should we? Are we vain? Selfish? First-worldly-and-spoiled-kinda-folks when people are starving and poor in Third-worlds?

I've not known how to share my excitement. I've been giddy with materialistic details such as: carpets, paint colors, door types, cabinets, and such. While others 'round the world may find satisfication from food picked from the trash. Or others around my corner who'd be esctatic to know they'll have a job tomorrow or food enough to feed all their hungry mouths.

I live in a First-world, world. But still there's pain here too. I think of the scripture which says to take care of the poor, the widows, the alien and orphans, within your gates. Yes. Even here in all our first-world-worldliness.

A friend from Indiana, who I shared my struggles with, said God looks at the heart, not the outward things.

I've thought of King David building beautiful buildings, mindful of God's handiwork to allow such building in the first place.

But I'm not King David. 

And we aren't building anything of splendor or granduer, nor cities or temples for His people.

Just one lone house on a farm, for us. Even with our organic house church in mind, it's mostly for us, isn't it?

And then there's the economy and world events and how it's affected so many I know.

Maybe it seems foolhardy with so much chaos and instability. But I know Jeremiah bought a field when his world fell apart. When his world was handed over to the Chaldeans and it seemed nothing was left and all was gone. Economically. Socially. Physically. All was swept away. And yet, God said, go buy that field.

 "‘Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: 'Take these deeds, both this purchase deed which is sealed and this deed which is open, and put them in an earthen vessel, that they may last many days.' For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: “Houses and fields and vineyards shall be possessed again in this land.”’ Jeremiah 32:14 and 15

Yet, I'm not building as a sign from the Almighty. Although it's been a promise given us over 6 years ago, ours is more personal than national.

We've spent the last three years planning, designing our own floor plan to maximize space and reduce costs. A place to house organic church and let it flow naturally from kitchen to living, from dining to prayer, from inside meetings to outside play. But also a place of building house and home, to nuture and school, to live and love on this favorite meadow of mine.

And still I struggle: how do I glorify Him (and build a house) in a hurting world?

I've only been reviewing this myself, just recently:

I put no hope in the manmade. I rest no happiness on earthly structures. I exalt not, earthly riches. I despise not, those good things which are from Above. I reach out to those in crisis. I trust not, the world's finances. I share my food with the hungry. I give away so others may have. I depend alone on God's economy. I place no foundation anywhere but on Christ. I seek the driveway which leads me Home. I shelter only under His wing. I take no pride in the things that burn. I boast not in that which comes to ruin. I favor not, a roof of shingles but instead favor the roof of Heavenly sky. 

I think not, of my own power but of the feebleness of clay hands.

And no matter first-world or third, this I aim to do: Remember Him. Bless Him. Praise Him. Wherever in the world we are, it's not forgetting Him which can't be bought or built.

“Beware that you do not forget the LORD ... lest—when you have eaten and are full, and have built beautiful houses and dwell in them; then you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth.’" Deuteronomy 8:11,12,17 

  at Laura's place....


 and Jen's too....

when losing the facade seems worse than death

It's obvious isn't it? People can be cruel and Christians in particular.

I mean, there's the high-n-mighty-horse that we Christians like to ride. We have our ideas of what's right and wrong and we aren't afraid to tell you about it. After all, scriptures are black and white and we can wield them like a sword to cut others down. And before we know it, our tongue is forked with Christ and sharp words and criticism.

All the more reason to hide.

Take your faults and your clay self to the kiln of goodness and willfulness. Then present to the world your porcelain face of religiosity and painted fairy-tales. That's safer, after all.

We don't want others to know how we really are, our sinful tendencies, our imperfected relationships and our struggles within and without. Pretending seems safer.

Who can judge what they don't see or know?

The secret place prides it's favorable position from those who know it from afar but also fearing it be exposed, found out, and flawed. Or worse, that it'd be more sinner than saint.

Porcelain sainthood is a vice of bondage, at best.

Drop the law-abiding, rule-keeping, I-don't-want-you-to-know-the-real-me, self.

Admit it.

There's no good in me and you might as well know it. There is only Christ and I thank God I'm unable to do any good because then I'd be expected to perform it. Hitting the bulls-eye of righteous and goodness, isn't a mark I'm able to consistently repeat.

We know that I's and me's fail somewhere, if not everywhere.

Why hide it and be a slave to sin as we pretend not to?

Why not openly confess, not from pride for our mess but for it's truth in our life. Freedom starts with that.

Truth.

So we begin with ourselves.

We unchain our will for His works. We know weakness before we know power.

We're humbled under our true state before we love with that kind of Love.

This is a messy, ugly work that scars our pretty facade. This is a violent work that shatters our delicate sensibilities. It's why we would rather the fake than the real. Because anything more, anything exposed feels like a stake-burning, a hero turned horror show villain and we played the part.

Too bare ourselves open feels like a blood bath.

But that is the very thing needed to live. Humility and Love reigning all Good things in us but only after we die a horrible death to self.

"Who longs to have the power and the liberty of the Holy Spirit? Oh, brother {or sister}, bow before God in one final cry of despair: 'O God, must I go on sinning this way forever? Who shall deliver me, O wretched man that I am from the body of death?'Are you ready to sink before God in that cry and seek the power of Jesus to live and work in {not by} you? Are you ready to say: 'I thank God through Jesus Christ?'"

from: Andrew Murray's Sermon on Romans 7:24,25 "O Wretched Man That I Am!" (reading from this weekend)

 so many others going before me, dropping self and facades for Christ...oh the humility of Truth!, may we be faithful to it....sharing at Laura's place today :)


 and at Jen's place...I'm loving how she's listening to God's direction.

when the church is divided

Sometimes we are asked to choose. Should we take that job, live here, visit that, give to this, spend our time there. Choices abound. And in America, we are spoiled from our choices.

Church too is a choice with one on most every corner. If you don't like one, then go to another. And even church leaders and pastors seem to like the choices too: if you don't like us, then leave.

Either way: "Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and a house divided against a house falls." Luke 11:17

If we're all in the same Kingdom, we're never really leaving, are we? What matters is we're connected to the Body in some way, by a consistent fellowship of believers.

What we need aren't loyal people but ones seeking an undivided loyalty. The kind that only goes by One denomination, a slave to one Master, a volunteer to One divine program, a learner according to One Teacher, an alien membership unto the same city of Zion.

Perhaps pastors and elders of religion think we're a fickle bunch of sheep. But fickle isn't confined just to congregants.

Maybe its the whole institution of the thing that creates apathy among the herd or burnout among the leaders.

We are humanly flawed with this sin nature and there is that.

All the more reason for submitting one to another, each one, not just some. Not just pastors to an elder of their choosing, or "members" to the pastor of their choosing, but all submitting one to another esteeming others better than our self.

This is a hard one, because I have a great adulterated affair with my flesh.

"It is often asked--how can we count others better than ourselves, when we see that they are far below us in wisdom and in holiness, in natural gifts, or in grace received? The question proves at once how little we understand what real lowliness of mind is." Humility by Andrew Murray

There's the struggle.

And there's my wrestling.

For we are born with that pride nature and I fear it above all else.

Humility is the equalizer of division.

And if I'm to be in the Body, I choose to be in the elementary of humility, a daily graduation of death. One I need schooling on, minute by minute.

hunger for heaven

My wearied self has been operating with a numbed mind for over a month. I blame it on allergies. Sleep has been intermittent by night, leaving me sluggish by day.

But today was different.

And I'm not so sure it was allergies.

On the way to this Body of church, I drove the 40 minutes (one way) to meet them, with my Pandora channel streaming worship through my car radio. My appetite had returned.

Lately, I have felt full or empty or satiated but something other than hunger. I felt rich in all the wrong ways. I was afraid I'd forgotten how He filled, how the kingdom is gained by the poor and lowly. How the hungry aren't satisfied with table scraps.  And I wanted to remember but I couldn't.

I've been wading through a foggy, tired brain like a blind person groping.

Today, it cracked. Maybe only a hairline fissure or possibly a large fracture, I'm not sure.

But I remembered.

I felt.

I stirred.

And the crisp fall air gleaming under the sun's bright rays like a beacon of Glory felt just like Heaven had landed all around me.

Day uttered speech and night revealed knowledge and I heard them speak.

Finally.

I was soul-starved, spirit-thirsty and I'm more alive hungry than I am as a rich bloated soul. The soul wants cake. But it needs a lean diet of Spirit-fed nutrition.

I don't want satisfied.

Give me a gnawing hunger for the things heaven declares. And let them be heard.

"Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night reveals knowledge.
 There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Their line has gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world." Psalm 19:2-4

   At Michelle's...

At Jen's......


  And at Laura's....