Where we go from here.... softness... time... being equipped

I was raised not in a culture that appreciated slow passing of time, lingering over each other and time and space was not the mode of activity or preference.

When I came into Christian faith I experienced not a culture that embraced waiting and the delicate and sweet passing of time and allowed for that ebb and flow.

It has taken me much time to come to this path and to embrace the wisdom of Ecclesiastes. There is a time for everything and everything under the sun has its time.  I have participated and only known cultures that push upon the natural order and boundaries of things as to have their desires accomplished in a some what more harried fashion.

If something takes 10 years then every moment of those 10 years serve in whatever is being incubated.

I haven't liked that...

We, as the Western church expression of Christian culture have no liked nor embraced that reality to its fullest.  In not reaching for depth of understanding into this reality and  circumventing process, in not reaching for understanding or appreciating this reality I wonder about how many abortions or miscarriages of the works of our Lord upon the earth and the people we have participated within.  I have participated in.

I hear about this and that person falling away from faith and yet when I hear their stories or read their accounts, it is not God they are rejecting.. it is culture and religion.  I hunger to learn the immense difference in expression and have Christ made manifest within me in a reality that really represents Him.

Four days away from having said and given a "yes," to the Lord for 100 days... expanding it to a year... and to a lifetime...

The lessons being learned and the interior transformation are beyond my wildest imagination.


It has taken time and the passage of time, and letting each season come and go and come and depart... upon the waves I am being brought out into the depths and I will never be the same...

It started with trusting Holy Spirit when upon being asked to do that which is His calling, lead us into all truth, He comes and does it well.. does it very well...

May love encompass you and saturate your very being..
May you know you are loved
And may you learn to rest in that love...

Sometimes there is no title................. Maybe that's the most important lesson to learn after all

"I wouldn't diminish those who have actually had the experience by saying that I'm emerging from a cult, but what I would say is that in some aspects of my life it feels like it."

"Would your husband say the same thing?"

"Uhm... good question," I said back to my therapist. "No, I don't think he would use the word, cult, but we have talked a great deal about ghettos, in relationship to where we have been in organizations. And how we don't want to live that life any longer. "


This was part of a conversation I was having with my counselor as I was trying to process where I've been, where to go and where I am.

It is said of me I write raw.  I've been holding off on this piece well, because... I was hoping to have more understanding but this morning, I realized this is not a place to walk alone. The finishing sentence or neatly tied up concluding paragraph won't come, that the process is just that a process, a journey, a moment by moment discovery.  I haven't been walking this journey without help, I have welcomed in and sought after insight and wisdom from those that are upon my path and I have spent hours in silence and solitude.  Daily I pray for the Holy Spirit to do that which He was sent forth to do and lead me into truth.

But there are moments where I don't know what to think and I don't know what to do and I don't know the paradigm to sync my heart, my feelings, my thoughts to.... and I come back time after time after time to the prayer attributed to St. Francis... "God, who are you?  God, who am I?" 

 And I linger over Merton's prayer:

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. 

I do not see the road ahead of me. 

I cannot know for certain where it will end. 

Nor do I really know myself, 

and the fact that I think I am following your will 

does not mean that I am actually doing so. 

But I believe that the desire to please you 

does, in fact, please you. 

And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. 

I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. 

And I know that if I do this 

you will lead me by the right road, 

though I may know nothing about it. 

Therefore, I will trust you always though 

I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. 

I will not fear, for you are ever with me, 

and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

I want to know Him.
I want to know Him as He is..
I want to be that which He formed and fashioned me to be...
I don't want to abide by some dogmatic this is who we are because I am a Christian and this is what I am to believe...

It grieves my heart at times when I see postings on social media that do not resemble the biblical Christ and yet with pride and certainty the poster pontificates their position.  Grieve is not an overstatement.

I want to touch the heart of Christ and know that heart beat. I want to lean upon Him and not my own understanding.  I want to trust Him when He leads me to the proverbial Samarias.  I want to be the good Samaritan not the religious fool who is in a hurry to get to some meeting or participate in that which they think "god" is doing and miss the very opportunity that is before me.

BUT I DID...

I was that fool... I did miss out...

Folks.. here, here is the truth... here is the confession... I spent 23 years in Christian ministry only to look back now and say many are dangerously close to coming face to face with Jesus and hearing that they were never known. I was there. I was there. Consumed with the doing and not stopping to listen, to be, to wait... Consumed with my own thoughts and vision and not pausing long enough to see that I left that which the Father is doing twenty miles back.

 Listen, I will give that I am in process.  I am processing through and in a great deal of paradigm shift.  I know not where this is going.  I know this I can't do that which I have done before.... Not the whole baby out with the bath water but the bath water must go..... It doesn't work...

I tried to keep up not wanting to be left behind or left out, and the truth of the matter was that in all that striving I have realized I did miss out on the most precious moments that can not ever be gotten back.  Ever so grateful for redemption and time now.

The fact of the matter is I love and hate that I have come to a place where I just don't know... I don't know what life with Christ is supposed to look like, the "guides" I have seen or followed said this or that and then some of them said we don't do this or that and others have said this or that is acceptable.  I think the fact of the matter is we don't know....  Liken unto Peter sitting on a roof top about to encounter the reality that it doesn't matter what food people eat. Liken unto the Judaizers who thought all needed to be circumcised to be accepted in. Liken unto those who were horrified that a woman was breaking a bottle of perfume and washing Jesus feet with her hair and tears. Liken unto the fact that He who cleansed the lepers, (on the sabbath), allowed women to be in His company, hung out with tax collectors, perpetually unclean in the eyes  of the religious; does things that the religious communities of every time say is heresy.  

That is the God I follow.  The One who did not come to abolish but fulfill the law is the One who time after time after time left the religious with their mouths on the floor as He left the people feeling and knowing God and His love.

There's a new song coming out by Bethel's Jenn Johnson and I couldn't ever be more grateful for the timing of a song.....  The lyrics are amazing...

My only prayer these days is that my heart would not faint and that courage would reverberate within me and keep me strong to walk this road, where the truth is I just don't know... But to sum it all up... I'm beautifully in over my head.... and that's ok

Then You crash over me and I’ve lost control but I’m free

I’m going under, I’m in over my head

And You crash over me, I’m where You want me to be

I’m going under, I’m in over my head

Whether I sink, whether I swim

It makes no difference when I’m beautifully in over my head

Whether I sink, whether I swim

It makes no difference when I’m beautifully in over my head

I’m Beautifully in over my head

I’m Beautifully in over my head 

It's going to take time Conversation... four...

Sitting in quiet and silence.               


My heart and mind going back over and over different times, different places.. faces, times, people, places...

Sweetness enters... His voice,

"It's going to take time."

"It's going to take time, give yourself time."

Time to unwind
Time to breathe
Time to learn
Time to unlearn
Time to grow
Time to heal

"It's going to take time."

In a culture such as ours what a luxury to hear upon the air those precious five words.  Their truth takes time to receive. Their depths take an intentional shifting of perspective.  Time.

He and I have all the time in the world.

Don't rush He whispers

Calm
Stillness

It is our desire that we would know Him.
Can we cease striving?
Can we be still?

If we can cease striving we are promised we will know Him...
If we can touch, hold unto ourselves stillness we will know Him...
If we can sit and let Him know us and enter into His peace, His shadow, His dwelling.. we will know Him..

I sat there.  There's so much I want settled.  There are so many answers I hunger for and feel like I need.  His stillness stands there as does His gaze and as He looks at me, I melt.  "You need time," He whispers, "Time to sit, and be still, and to know Me, let's not rush past these moments.  Let's, you and I, savor them. You display trust when you pause, linger, wait upon Me."

Rest
Relax

Sit with Him in quiet stillness and be transformed.

I believe more in what can be done through rest and a ceasing of striving then any following the perfect 5 year plan could ever achieve. I believe. I believe in rest. I believe in waiting. I believe in knowing Him. I believe in allowing Him to permeate and penetrate and go deeper and deeper still, bringing me deeper and deeper into a Heavenly stillness that knows no description.  Any attempt to try to use language to express what that place feels like, that saturated pause in Him... they don't exist.  You must simply, profoundly, enter...

Enter...
Enter

His rest..
His pause
His life...

Conversation ... Three

I sat in stillness and all was quiet.
I let my body sink into the cushions of the sofa and I just sat...

All was still..
All was quiet..

"You don't trust yourself..."

"You don't trust yourself... " and He began to express His heart upon the matter....

The words of a man who is incredibly intuitive once said, "I know far more than you want me to and far less than you think I do."  Those words also rang in my head....  and the two statements began to play upon my heart.

There was something very specifically that I needed to see and to touch and to acknowledge.  I knew to do so would have ramifications and so I would rather say to myself, "I am wrong."  But how many times in my life had I said that already?  How many times had I actually then been right? How many times had I swallowed what could have been said? What should have been said?  How many times in not wanting to see and not wanting to hear and not wanting to know I remained silent? BECAUSE... but of course I can't be right!  

But of course I must be wrong.....

Only to have had correct discernment....

"You don't trust yourself..." And as Jesus wept over Jerusalem I could feel Him weeping over me.... Imploring me to touch this reality and to grow away from it... But then came more words and more words and that is what brought me to my laptop upon this frigid morning...

"You don't trust yourself..."  and then,  "They don't trust themselves..."

And there was no chastisement, just sorrow....

Have I.. have we been taught not to trust ourselves?

I realize that I am probably touching the first season of twenty-four years of full time Christian service where I am not looking for another human being to express to me what I should or need to believe..... I am touching moments liken unto one evening not too long ago where I sat in stillness and quiet and received strength and courage to believe that as I do seek, and as I do sit and as I do pursue I will know... I will know Him.. I will know myself more..

I have sat with Him more in stillness.. in quiet
I have sat with myself more in stillness .. in quiet

In the beginning it can be a terrifying exercise. Every day it can be a terrifying exercise...
Bit after bit and moment after moment it becomes the most intoxicating times though.. still terrifying .. but I have prayed for years, "know me... I want to know you.."  But didn't quiet myself, didn't linger over Him or my being, didn't pause, didn't cease... 

To know, really know one is to spend time with one.  To allow things to not just be a 15 second sound bite but to allow moments to penetrate, to reverberate, to capture your attentions and change and alter your appetites... To let the Spirit hover over that which is chaotic and bring order ... beautiful, incredible higher order....

The man, St. Francis of Assisi, is attributed with the prayer:  "Oh Lord who are you? 
 Oh Lord who am I?"

Pray that prayer with quiet reverence for a month or longer and watch ...

I am learning to trust... I am learning to lean more upon Him and in so doing He is leading me in a way and instructing my heart to trust more and more that which He placed in me when He sung over me and knit me together in my mother's womb...

Be well... Be very well....

And know in the depths of you that that which He placed within you can be lead and be guided and molded and that He who is asked for bread will not ever give a snake....

That which makes for greatness....

A pile of sun scorched dry bones lying in a valley becomes great.....

What do those who were once not even skeletons know deep within those bones?

They know what got them there.
They know what that place feels like.
They know His grace beyond any effort they could ever put forth.

What makes for greatness?

"So I prophesied as I was commanded; and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold, a rattling; and the bones came together, bone to its bone. And I looked, and behold, sinews were on them, and flesh grew and skin covered them; but there was no breath in them. Then He said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, ‘Thus says the Lord God, “Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they come to life.”’” So I prophesied as He commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they came to life and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army." Ezekiel 37


They know the sounds of rattling deep within all that they are...
They know the sensations of coming back together in right order and alignment...
They know what it means to have no breathe left 
They know the song of the four winds...
They have tasted of the driest of dry
They have tasted death after death 


What makes them exceedingly great?

The depth of understanding that reverberates into every form and facet of their being, every part of their psyche, their ego, their entire make up understands the reality that but God ....

But His breathe
But His wish for their life
But Him and His desire

They would have been left upon a field NOTHING more than a pile of dry bones...

I would have been left upon a field as a pile of dry bones but His wishes.. His desires.... His  passion.

It is a song that has been left within my being.  The sounds of rattling, the sounds of wind, the sounds of  breath... I have been branded by their songs ayd their sound.. They propel me into understanding and they cause me to bow and bow low.  They have taught me my place in the created order and have settled my soul.  I am no more and I am no less then that which I exist in His heart song. I have touched cease striving and know Him as God, receive breath back into your being and know Him as God and in so doing I have touched a most awe inspiring fire that will never be consumed but consumes all in its path.  And it is well with my soul.

He may consume all that He desires and yet He leaves me more and more whole. 

Close your eyes
lean back upon the wind
Hear its singing over you 
It is calling the you who you really are to emerge

Stand in the fires of Heaven not for service but for life....  it will propel service but seek it not for service... seek the fires that burn away all the dross within our thinking and receive the ways that are so much higher then...

Pause

Wait for it
Silence yourself and wait for it

What makes for greatness?

A heart submitted to breathe, to life, to Him.. a life lived acknowledging it is under His gaze in which we live and breathe and have our being...

Forgetting greatness and laying it all behind .. He considered His equality with God nothing to be grasped but laid it down...  For the joy that was set before Him...

Forgetting greatness and embracing Joy and a life of light and peace and gentleness and strength.. a life in Him...

 The breathe of God courses through my being..The songs are rest, quiet, silence, returning over and over again to Him..enjoying and delighting in Him as He delights in me and us and all creation...

God desires pull us into a life and existence in our wildest lives we would never even imagine... my mind was too small and my focus too on the ways of man....  He took my chin and settled His gaze upon me and lifted my head and caused me to get lost in His eyes...

He has settled our souls once and for all...   and it is good as it was in the beginning .. it is good.... it is very good.

Conversation .... Two

As of late I have kept some of my personal practices private and to my own heart.

Too often I have jumped the gun, shared too quickly, about the intimate workings within my relationship with the Spirit, with Father, with Christ.  Too often I took intimate moments with our God and spread them out for all to see instead of letting them do their work and saturate and strengthen my soul.  It was as if I went to all my proverbial girl friends and shared  the intimate details of making love to my husband.

God loves us so personally and intimately and is the Lover of our souls. I have seen how He responds to respecting that relationship. It has caused me to awaken to His desire for close and personal, intimate moments with His own. 

It took me a long time to realize that these precious moments between us, were meant for us... He and I, and at times only He and I. Most times only He and I. A safe practice to have is assume 98% of that which happens between you and God is for and between you and Him.  That is a safe assumption. It will not lead you wrongly.  As I embraced those truths, I put into my life practices and disciplines as to empower me to revel in the beauty that is ours to have with Him.

One such practice that I have done now for 29 days is pray a prayer found in Jeremiah 33:3

Call to Me
 and
 I will answer you,
 and 
I will tell you
 great and mighty things, 
which you do not know.’

But it wasn't things I wanted to know. 

I wanted to know Him. And so when I began I merged that which the Lord spoke forth with a prayer that is attributed to St. Francis of Assisi.  "Lord, who are you?  Lord, who am I?"

It wasn't "things" I wanted to know.... It was Him.  "Show me about yourself," I would pray.  Show me great and mighty things about you which I do not know.

I was driving near my home  and there was much upon my heart and mind.  I had concerns. I wasn't praying.  When that all too familiar beautiful sound filled my heart; His voice... His whispers.. Him.

"I am not punitive, Mims."

and again He would say," I am not punitive, Mims."

Punitive: Intending or inflicting as punishment.

Our God isn't the yin/yang or karma related.  While we do reap that which we have sowed, it isn't vindictive. 

"There is no fear in love;
 but
 perfect love casts out fear, 
because 
fear involves punishment,
 and
 the one who fears is not perfected in love.
 
1 John 4:18 

Those moments were sweet, as if gentling streams of living waters cascaded over my soul healing every raw wound or past infliction.  I've known lots of punishment at the hands of men, inside and outside the church.  There is fear in my heart in regards to relationship at times.  I've all too often seen relationship crumble and ministry take precedence. 

In this moment, He was expressing His heart as if He was saying, "I'm not like that."

"I'm not punitive, Mims."

And in that moment

  I knew 

great and mighty things!

Conversations ... One

It was as if I had poured out my heart and after listening the response was just simply, "blue."

That was how taken back I was...

I had been sharing my heart, my longings, my struggles...
And when His response came, it was so other than anything I could have ever anticipated that even my body reacted, as my head shook back and forth trying to get an equilibrium.. trying to take in what He said and in seconds receive that which was transacting.

"I laughed more than people think."

It hung in the air.

I had just borne my soul out to Him and that is what He said, "I laughed more than people think."  It felt like (while not truly possible) that He had gotten distracted and focused on His own thoughts and out of His mouth just flowed in line of what He was thinking, "I laughed more than people think."

But it caught me so off guard that it pushed me out of where I was and I cocked my head off to the left and fixed my gaze on His felt presence.  And sat there quietly.  Looking into air but knowing His presence and knowing Him.  Knowing that in that silence and in those words there was much to be unlocked.

I have learned that patience, quietness, waiting, stillness are some of the best practices and atmospheres to cultivate when one wants understanding. So I waited.  I was still. I was quiet.  We were quiet.  He was reflective. I was waiting.

In all that transpired more ..
so much more was communicated in the stillness, in the silence that flowed between us... A strength, a solidness.. a joy...  and I went from a place of heavy heartedness into a quiet place where interior rivers flow and my sorrow and my questions and I floated down with it and Him.

One of my favorite verses in all of Scripture is found at the very end of the gospel of John.

"And there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they were written in detail, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books that would be written."
John 21:25

Jesus at the wedding
Jesus holding the children
Jesus resting by the fire with John and the other disciples
Jesus walking with and among the people
Jesus in His quiet away times with the Father
Jesus with His mother staring into her eyes with the grandest of affections as infants do
Jesus with  Joseph touching wood, learning about tools and how to craft
Jesus with His siblings
Jesus as a baby, The Word wordless ....cooing
Jesus as a toddler, Creator learning how to walk
Jesus..
Jesus in all the places He traveled, amongst all the throngs of people that pressed into Him, LAUGHED....  and laughed more than we could ever imagine.

As I have let the words sink in and the idea saturate my being.. I have contemplated the essence of solid joy.. of delightful peace .. irrespective of situation or circumstance it is a state of being that glows and emits warmth and comfort and presence.  It changes all things and brings forth lightness and light.

"I laughed more than people think."

Oh my sweet sweet Lord, I get it... you thoroughly did.... and you still do...