"May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the full knowledge of Him, and may the eyes of your heart be enlightened, in order that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the incomparable greatness of His power toward us who believe." (Ephesians 1:17-19)
These verses stuck out of the offerings that come in the form of devotionals to me in my email each day……like God typically does, as of late, He has placed this verse upon the tinder of my heart, there to be enticed to a flame and consume my desires of service, of faithfulness and of faith into a conflagration of passionate understanding and service to Him, for His glory and His kingdom, with the talents and gifts that the Holy Spirit has bestowed upon this new heart. So it sat, upon the dry fuel of my belief…..it sat there on the way to work….it sat there as I settled into the work environment for the day….
Then it caught flame…..and began to burn…………
And it smoldered a little bit, those wispy tentacles of dark gray smoke meandering into the night sky of this dessert experience….one that has been full of oasis's and mirages…and cold dark nights with a meager fire that has been too often the only source of light during this time…..a time that I had thought recently I had come to the end of…but I haven't. God isn't done with me yet.
Laying by the fledging fire are two images: the image my broken and wounded self carries of its inability and unworthiness to be part of God's work that is happening in, out and around it in the Kingdom building projects that He has shown for my joining; and an image that defies the broken past, current circumstances and projected future that is equipped, provisioned and inspired by its sole dependence upon the might, power, glory and promises of God's word.
One must be fed into the fire; to be consumed or to dampen the fire growing. I must dampen the dangerous fire with the watery material of my faith, quenching this belief and turning away from the logic and emotional connect to this God,
Or I must add the meager fuel of my faith, belief and passionate pursuit of God to the fire so that it will be added to the consuming conflagration.
There is no middle ground; especially now in the time of deception and distortion, both within my own heart and in the world of 'tolerant faiths, beliefs and systems.'
My fear of God must be greater than my fear of myself….or I must let the foolishness of my belief play itself out and let God be what He is to me deep in my soul; a mirage, a figment of my imagination that has been laid aside finally in the morning sun of reality. If I fear the identity that I hold of a broken, worthless son of my earthly father, then I must devalue and disregard the image of a beloved, empowered and cherished son of my heavenly Father. To fear God is to acknowledge that I cannot possibly out-think, out-logic, or out-anything with Him. And if He says that I am a cherished and beloved Son, I must follow His belief, His vision and His purpose to its ultimate end….an end I have yet to see.
"[God] will also take us back to heal the wounds, finish things that didn't get finished." John Eldridge writes in his latest book, Fathered by God. "He will come for the boy, no matter how old he might now be, and make him his Beloved Son."
"God will never reveal more truth about Himself to you," Oswald Chambers writes in My Utmost for His Highest. "Until you have obeyed what you know already."
As Henry T. Blackaby and Claude V. King, in Experiencing God: Knowing and Doing the Will of God, say we must apply seven principles to know and do God's Will: Acknowledging that God is always at work around us, pursues a continuing love relationship with us that is real and personal, invites us to become involved with Him in His work, speaks by the Holy Spirit through the Bible, prayer, circumstances and the church to reveal Himself, His purposes and His ways……
God's invitation for us to work with Him, according to Blackaby and King, always leads us to a crisis of belief that requires faith and action, to which we must make major adjustments in our lives to join Him in what He is doing. The ultimate principal is that we come to know God by experience as we obey Him and He accomplishes His work through us.
I want to pursue that work to which God has called me, and all the 'criteria' is met. It is only my prayer that:
May I do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility may I esteem others as more important than myself. Let me look not only to my own interests, but also to the interests of others. (Philippians 2:3-4)
As I step into this new season…this new adventure with my knees knocking together and my comfort zone left far far behind……I can break down my heart in two simple verses, words spoken by one of the greatest apostles we have been blessed to know, Paul…..he said:
I pray that God may open to me a door for the word, so that I may speak the mystery of Christ and proclaim it clearly, as I ought to speak. (Colossians 4:3-4)
He has and I am going to step through it into the work He has enticed me to join……
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